Literature and Machines

Catalog description

Machine metaphors play an important role in modern literature, conveying beliefs, anxieties, shifts, and reflections on key topics, including the nature of consciousness and creativity; the dynamics of desire and gratification; gender roles; the organization of society; the meaning of "nature"; and the function of technology. This course explores different manifestations of the machine theme, broadly clustered around the following categories: imaginary machines constituting the centerpiece of narrative plots; machine aesthetic as modernist ideal; and mechanization of the inventive process (text-generating machines). Students read and discuss a selection of works from different cultural contexts, primarily from the late 19th and 20th century (e.g., Belle Époque, Futurist, and postwar), representing a wide spectrum of attitudes toward the machine, from dreamy immersion in virtual realities to enlightened machine-assisted awakening, from the fear of dehumanization to the desire for man-machine fusion.