The Enlightenment Cyborg : : A History of Communications and Control in the Human Machine, 1660-1830 / / Allison Muri.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Toronto Press eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Muri, Allison,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2016]; ©2007
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (240 p.)

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.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Matter, Mechanism, and the Soul -- 3. Some Contexts for Human Machines and the Body Politic: Early Modern / Postmodern Government and Feedback -- 4. The Man-Machine: Communications, Circulations, and Commerce -- 5. The Woman-Machine: Techno-lust and Techno-reproduction -- 6. Cyborg Conceptions: Bodies, Texts, and the Future of Human Spirit -- Notes -- References -- Illustration Credits -- Index