Romantic Automata

Exhibitions, Figures, Organisms

By: Michael Demson (Editor), Christopher R. Clason (Editor), Frederick Burwick (Contribution by), Ashley Shams (Contribution by), Peter Erickson (Contribution by)

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Paperback | 17 April 2020

At a Glance

Paperback
264 Pages

Age
18+

Dimensions(cm)
23.5 x 15.6 x 2

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A deep dread of puppets and the machinery that propels them surfaced in Romantic literature in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century; Romantic Automata is a collection of essays examining the rise of cultural suspicion of all imitations of homo sapiens and similar machinery, as witnessed in the literature and arts of the time. 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. 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. The essays in this collection open new methodological approaches to understanding human interaction with technology that strives to simulate or to supplement organic life.

Industry Reviews

"Romantic Automata is fascinating if idiosyncratic, and I enjoyed reading the essays immensely. Exploring literary representations of the relationship between the mechanical and the human or organic, this well-researched collection brings a range of theoretical approaches and primary sources to bear on an otherwise largely canonical debate. The readings are insightful and original, the arguments compelling and clear." -- Ghislaine McDayter * author of Byromania and the Birth of Celebrity Culture *
"Romantic Automata is a strong collection of essays that engages a broad spectrum of European Romanticism. It fills a real need in the current scholarship of Romanticism as it connects the literary fascination with automata, dolls, and machines of the early nineteenth century with contemporary theoretical concerns with gender representation and the posthuman." -- William Davis * author of Romanticism, Hellenism, and the Philosophy of Nature *
"Romantic Automata is fascinating if idiosyncratic, and I enjoyed reading the essays immensely. Exploring literary representations of the relationship between the mechanical and the human or organic, this well-researched collection brings a range of theoretical approaches and primary sources to bear on an otherwise largely canonical debate. The readings are insightful and original, the arguments compelling and clear." -- Ghislaine McDayter * author of Byromania and the Birth of Celebrity Culture *
"Romantic Automata is a strong collection of essays that engages a broad spectrum of European Romanticism. It fills a real need in the current scholarship of Romanticism as it connects the literary fascination with automata, dolls, and machines of the early nineteenth century with contemporary theoretical concerns with gender representation and the posthuman." -- William Davis * author of Romanticism, Hellenism, and the Philosophy of Nature *
". . . a rich volume full of interesting topics and novel insights that makes a significant contribution to the study of the early history of posthumanism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries." * European Romantic Review *

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