Animals, Machines, and AI: On Human and Non-Human Emotions in Modern German Cultural History (Interdisciplinary German Cultural Studies, 31)

Sentient animals, machines, and robots abound in German literature and culture, but there has been surprisingly limited scholarship on non-human life forms in German studies. This volume extends interdisciplinary research in emotion studies to examine non-humans and the affective relationships between humans and non-humans in modern German cultural history. In recent years, fascination with emotions, developments in robotics, and the burgeoning of animal studies in and beyond the academy have given rise to questions about the nature of humanity. Using sources from the life sciences, literature, visual art, poetry, philosophy, and photography, this collection interrogates not animal or machine emotions per se, but rather uses animals and machines as lenses through which to investigate human emotions and the affective entanglements between humans and non-humans. The COVID-19 pandemic made us more keenly aware of the importance of both animals and new technologies in our daily lives, and this volume ultimately sheds light on the centrality of non-humans in the human emotional world and the possibilities that relationships with non-humans offer for enriching that world. Watch our talk with the editors Erika Quinn and Holly Yanacek here: https://youtu.be/RBMwXah_Om8 Sentient animals, machines, and robots abound in German literature and culture, but there has been surprisingly limited scholarship on non-human life forms in German studies. This volume extends interdisciplinary research in emotion studies to examine non-humans and the affective relationships between humans and non-humans in modern German cultural history. In recent years, fascination with emotions, developments in robotics, and the burgeoning of animal studies in and beyond the academy have given rise to questions about the nature of humanity. Using sources from the life sciences, literature, visual art, poetry, philosophy, and photography, this collection interrogates not animal or machine emotions per se, but rather uses animals and machines as lenses through which to investigate human emotions and the affective entanglements between humans and non-humans. The COVID-19 pandemic made us more keenly aware of the importance of both animals and new technologies in our daily lives, and this volume ultimately sheds light on the centrality of non-humans in the human emotional world and the possibilities that relationships with non-humans offer for enriching that world.-- Source other than the Library of Congress Acknowledgements 5 Contents 7 List of Figures 9 Introduction: Feeling beyond the Human 11 Emotions and Human/Non-Human Boundaries 43 Mechanical Feelings 43 Animals and Aesthetic Empathy in Germany around 1900 67 Control and Companion in the Work of Jakob von Uexküll and Konrad Lorenz 89 Emotional Functions of Non-Humans 107 Expressive Creatures 107 Between the Animal and the Reader 125 Robots, Machines, and Humanity 149 Empathic Understanding between Humans and Non-Humans 179 “Penetrating the Innermost Heart” 179 I Know What the Caged Cat Feels 205 Benevolent Bots 229 Notes on Contributors 251 Selected Bibliography 253 Index 257 The series publishes monographs and edited volumes that showcase significant scholarly work at the various intersections that currently motivate interdisciplinary inquiry in German cultural studies. Topics span all periods of German and German-speaking lands and cultures from the local to the global, with a special focus on demonstrating how various disciplines - history, musicology, art history, anthropology, religious studies, media studies, political theory, literary and cultural studies, among others - and new theoretical and methodological paradigms work across disciplinary boundaries to