| Description |
1 online resource (viii, 308 pages, 40 unnumbered pages of plates) : illustrations |
| Contents |
Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1 Introduction -- The Problem of �Modernity� and Moralizing in Postmodern Cyborg Discourse -- The Problem of Descartes, Dualism, and �Enlightenment�: Subjectivities in Cyborg Discourse -- A New Schema for Cyborg Theory -- The Problem of Definition -- The Enlightenment Cyborg -- 2 Matter, Mechanism, and the Soul -- Defining the Cyborg: Molecules, Electrons, and Spirit -- Defining the Man-Machine I: Mechanicks and Matter -- Defining the Man-Machine II: From Aether to Ethernet? |
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3 Some Contexts for Human Machines and the Body Politics: Early Modern / Postmodern Government and FeedbackContext 1: The Nervous System and Machines for Communicating -- Context 2: Communications and Control in the Cyborg -- Context 3: Communications and Control in the Man-Machine -- Context 4: Clockwork versus Feedback in Human Machines -- 4 The Man-Machine: Communications, Circulations, and Commerce -- Thomas Willis�s Nervous Government -- Communications and the Sovereignty of the Soul in The Anatomy of the Brain |
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The Extension of the Soul in Two Discourses Concerning the Soul of BrutesLiterary Communications: Materialism and the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit -- The Man-Machine and Intellectual Electricity -- 5 The Woman-Machine: Techno-lust and Techno-reproduction -- The Female Cyborg in Twentieth-century Fiction and Film, or, Why Do Cyborgs Need Boobs? -- Cyborg Reproductive Technologies in the Twentieth Century -- Female Cyborg Origin Stories -- Where�s the Woman-Machine? -- Female Vanity and Mechanick Art -- Domestic Machines? |
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Sex Machines: The Mechanical Operation of the SlitReproductive Machines: Knowledge, �Geometrical Certainty, � and the Automatic Womb -- 6 Cyborg Conceptions: Bodies, Texts, and the Future of Human Spirit -- Virtually Human: The Electronic Page, the Archived Body, and Human Identity -- Some Conceptual Frameworks: The Electronic Page and the Book of Life -- The Electronic Page and Human Spirit -- The Archived Body -- Of Books and Spirit -- Concluding Remarks -- Notes -- References -- Illustration Credits -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G |
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HI -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- V -- W -- Y -- Z -- Illustrations |
| Summary |
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 |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 273-293) and index |
| Notes |
In English |
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Print version record |
| Subject |
Human-machine systems -- History
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Cyborgs -- History
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SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Popular Culture.
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SOCIAL SCIENCE -- General.
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Cyborgs
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Human-machine systems
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| Genre/Form |
Electronic books
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History
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9781442684904 |
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1442684909 |
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