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

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. Cover 1 Title Page 4 Copyright 5 Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 1 Introduction 14 The Problem of ‘Modernity’ and Moralizing in Postmodern Cyborg Discourse 18 The Problem of Descartes, Dualism, and ‘Enlightenment’: Subjectivities in Cyborg Discourse 24 A New Schema for Cyborg Theory 28 The Problem of Definition 30 The Enlightenment Cyborg 35 2 Matter, Mechanism, and the Soul 43 Defining the Cyborg: Molecules, Electrons, and Spirit 52 Defining the Man-Machine I: Mechanicks and Matter 56 Defining the Man-Machine II: From Aether to Ethernet? 74 3 Some Contexts for Human Machines and the Body Politics: Early Modern / Postmodern Government and Feedback 97 Context 1: The Nervous System and Machines for Communicating 103 Context 2: Communications and Control in the Cyborg 106 Context 3: Communications and Control in the Man-Machine 113 Context 4: Clockwork versus Feedback in Human Machines 120 4 The Man-Machine: Communications, Circulations, and Commerce 128 Thomas Willis’s Nervous Government 129 Communications and the Sovereignty of the Soul in The Anatomy of the Brain 131 The Extension of the Soul in Two Discourses Concerning the Soul of Brutes 142 Literary Communications: Materialism and the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit 152 The Man-Machine and Intellectual Electricity 193 5 The Woman-Machine: Techno-lust and Techno-reproduction 201 The Female Cyborg in Twentieth-century Fiction and Film, or, Why Do Cyborgs Need Boobs? 202 Cyborg Reproductive Technologies in the Twentieth Century 207 Female Cyborg Origin Stories 210 Where’s the Woman-Machine? 215 Female Vanity and Mechanick Art 234 Domestic Machines? 240 Sex Machines: The Mechanical Operation of the Slit 243 Reproductive Machines: Knowledge, ‘Geometrical Certainty,’ and the Automatic Womb 249 6 Cyborg Conceptions: Bodies, Texts, and the Future of Human Spirit 277 Virtually Human: The Electronic Page, the Archived Body, and Human Identity 279 Some Conceptual Frameworks: The Electronic Page and the Book of Life 282 The Electronic Page and Human Spirit 287 The Archived Body 289 Of Books and Spirit 296 Concluding Remarks 299 Notes 306 References 324 Illustration Credits 346 Index 348 A 348 B 349 C 350 D 351 E 352 F 352 G 352 H 353 I 354 J 354 K 354 L 354 M 355 N 355 O 356 P 356 Q 356 R 356 S 357 T 358 V 358 W 358 Y 359 Z 359 Illustrations 162 "In The Enlightenment Cyborg, Allison Muri presents cultural evidence, from literary, philosophical, scientific, and medical texts, for the existence of mechanically steered or 'cyber' humans in the works of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century thinkers. Muri illustrates how Enlightenment exploration of the notion of the 'man-machines' 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."--BOOK JACKET