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

Muri, Allison

ISBN 10: 0802088503 / ISBN 13: 9780802088505

Published by University of Toronto Press, 2007

About this Item

University of Toronto Press: 2007. Octavo. Hardcover with a dust jacket. First edition. Black boards with silver lettering. Slight roll to the text block. About 15 pages of the text have underlining or writing. Unclipped jacket has minor edge wear. Book is in good condition, jacket is very good.

Seller Inventory # 002351

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Enlightenment Cyborg: A History of Communications and Control in the Human Machine, 1660-1830
• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Publication Date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802088503
• ISBN 13: 9780802088505
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

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.

About the Author

Allison Muri is an assistant professor in the Department of English at the University of Saskatchewan.