Romantic Automata: Exhibitions, Figures, Organisms (Transits: Literature, Thought & Culture 1650-1850)

Synopsis

For most of the eighteenth century, automata were deemed a celebration of human ingenuity, feats of science and reason. Among the Romantics, however, they prompted a contradictory apprehension about mechanization and contrivance: such science and engineering threatened the spiritual nature of life, the source of compassion in human society. A deep dread of puppets and the machinery that propels them consequently surfaced in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century literature. Romantic Automata is a collection of essays examining the rise of this cultural suspicion of mechanical imitations of life. Recent scholarship in post-humanism, post-colonialism, disability studies, post-modern feminism, eco-criticism, and radical Orientalism has significantly affected the critical discourse on this topic. In engaging with the work and thought of Coleridge, Poe, Hoffmann, Mary Shelley, and other Romantic luminaries, the contributors to this collection open new methodological approaches to understanding human interaction with technology that strives to simulate, supplement, or supplant organic life. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

Copyright:

2020

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

ISBN-13:

9781684481781

Related ISBNs:

9781684481774, 9781684481767

Publisher:

Bucknell University Press

Date of Addition:

04/20/20

Copyrighted By:

Bucknell University Press

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

History, Nonfiction, Romance, Literature and Fiction, Technology, Language Arts

Grade Levels:

College Freshman

Reading Age:

18 and up

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.

Edited by:

Michael Demson

Edited by:

Christopher R. Clason