For many cultural theorists, the concept of the cyborg - an organism controlled by mechanic processes - is firmly rooted in the post-modern, post-industrial, post-Enlightenment, post-nature, post-gender, or post-human culture of the late twentieth century. Allison Muri argues, however, that there is a long and rich tradition of art and philosophy that explores the equivalence of human and machine, and that the cybernetic organism as both a literary figure and an anatomical model has, in fact, existed since the Enlightenment.
In The Enlightenment Cyborg, Muri presents cultural evidence - in literary, philosophical, scientific, and medical texts - for the existence of mechanically steered, or 'cyber' humans in the works seventeenth- and eighteenth-century thinkers. Muri illustrates how Enlightenment exploration of the notion of the 'man-machine' was inextricably tied to ideas of reproduction, government, individual autonomy, and the soul, demonstrating an early connection between scientific theory and social and political thought. She argues that late twentieth-century social and political movements, such as socialism, feminism, and even conservatism, are thus not unique in their use of the cyborg as a politicized trope.
The Enlightenment Cyborg establishes a dialogue between eighteenth-century studies and cyborg art and theory, and makes a significant and original contribution to both of these fields of inquiry.
Authors
- Bibliography, etc. Note
- Includes bibliographical references (p. [273]-293) and index
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- 303.48/3
- Dewey Decimal Edition Number
- 22
- General Note
- Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- ISBN
- 9780802088505 9781442684904
- LCCN
- TA167
- LCCN Item number
- M86 2007eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- NLC
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (viii, 308 p., [40] p. of plates)
- Published in
- Canada
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)thg00601014 (OCoLC)752443020 (CaOOCEL)418924
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Transcribing agency
- NLC
Table of Contents
- Contents 8
- Acknowledgments 10
- 1 Introduction 14
- The Problem of ‘Modernity’ and Moralizing in Postmodern Cyborg Discourse 18
- The Problem of Descartes, Dualism, and ‘Enlightenment’: Subjectivities in Cyborg Discourse 24
- A New Schema for Cyborg Theory 28
- The Problem of Definition 30
- The Enlightenment Cyborg 35
- 2 Matter, Mechanism, and the Soul 43
- Defining the Cyborg: Molecules, Electrons, and Spirit 52
- Defining the Man-Machine I: Mechanicks and Matter 56
- Defining the Man-Machine II: From Aether to Ethernet? 74
- 3 Some Contexts for Human Machines and the Body Politics: Early Modern / Postmodern Government and Feedback 97
- Context 1: The Nervous System and Machines for Communicating 103
- Context 2: Communications and Control in the Cyborg 106
- Context 3: Communications and Control in the Man-Machine 113
- Context 4: Clockwork versus Feedback in Human Machines 120
- 4 The Man-Machine: Communications, Circulations, and Commerce 128
- Thomas Willis’s Nervous Government 129
- Communications and the Sovereignty of the Soul in The Anatomy of the Brain 131
- The Extension of the Soul in Two Discourses Concerning the Soul of Brutes 142
- Literary Communications: Materialism and the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit 152
- The Man-Machine and Intellectual Electricity 193
- 5 The Woman-Machine: Techno-lust and Techno-reproduction 201
- The Female Cyborg in Twentieth-century Fiction and Film, or, Why Do Cyborgs Need Boobs? 202
- Cyborg Reproductive Technologies in the Twentieth Century 207
- Female Cyborg Origin Stories 210
- Where’s the Woman-Machine? 215
- Female Vanity and Mechanick Art 234
- Domestic Machines? 240
- Sex Machines: The Mechanical Operation of the Slit 243
- Reproductive Machines: Knowledge, ‘Geometrical Certainty,’ and the Automatic Womb 249
- 6 Cyborg Conceptions: Bodies, Texts, and the Future of Human Spirit 277
- Virtually Human: The Electronic Page, the Archived Body, and Human Identity 279
- Some Conceptual Frameworks: The Electronic Page and the Book of Life 282
- The Electronic Page and Human Spirit 287
- The Archived Body 289
- Of Books and Spirit 296
- Concluding Remarks 299
- Notes 306
- References 324
- Illustration Credits 346
- Index 348
- A 348
- B 349
- C 350
- D 351
- E 352
- F 352
- G 352
- H 353
- I 354
- J 354
- K 354
- L 354
- M 355
- N 355
- O 356
- P 356
- Q 356
- R 356
- S 357
- T 358
- V 358
- W 358
- Y 359
- Z 359
- Illustrations 162