Romantic Automata

Michael Demson is an associate professor at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, where he teaches courses in Romanticism, literary theory, and world literature. He has published numerous scholarly articles, co-edited Commemorating Peterloo: Violence, Resilience and Claim-Making in the Romantic Era (2019) and a graphic novel, Masks of Anarchy (2013).  Christopher R. Clason is an emeritus professor of German language and literature at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. He has authored numerous articles in German medieval and Romantic literature. He is the editor of E.T.A. Hoffmann: Transgressive Romanticism (2018) and co-editor of several collections of essays.

• List of Illustrations  Acknowledgements  Notes on Contributors and Co-editors  IntroductionMichael Demson and Christopher R. Clason  Chapters:Section I: Exhibitions  1. The Uncanny Valley: E. T. A. Hoffmann, Sigmund Freud, Masahiro MoriFrederick Burwick  2. The (Re-)Winding of Hoffmann's Automata: from Offenbach's 1881 Opera to Powell and Pressburger's 1951 Film  Ashley Shams  3. Wounded Bodies in the Lithographs of Théodore Géricault, 1818-1820Peter Erickson  Section II: Figures  4. Romantic Tales of Pseudo Automata: The Chess-Playing Turk in Hoffmann, Poe, and Benjamin  Wendy Nielsen  5. On Toys, Violence, and Automated Gender  Erin Goss  6. Automatic for All: Mary Shelley's Posthuman Passion  Kate Singer  7. "A little earthly idol to contract your ideas": Global Hermeneutics in Phebe Gibbes's Zoriada, or, Village Annals (1786)  Kathryn Freeman  Section III: Organisms  8. Schelling's Uncanny Organism  Stefani Engelstein  9. "it […] lives by dying": S. T. Coleridge's Mechanical Life and Colonial Necropolitics  Lenora Hanson  10. The Metaphysical Machinery of Mining in Novalis's Works  Christina M. Weiler  Bibliography  Index

"Romantic Automata is fascinating if idiosyncratic, and I enjoyed reading the essays immensely. Exploring literary representations of the relationship between the mechanical and the human or organic, this well-researched collection brings a range of theoretical approaches and primary sources to bear on an otherwise largely canonical debate. The readings are insightful and original, the arguments compelling and clear."— Ghislaine McDayter, author of Byromania and the Birth of Celebrity Culture"Romantic Automata is a strong collection of essays that engages a broad spectrum of European Romanticism. It fills a real need in the current scholarship of Romanticism as it connects the literary fascination with automata, dolls, and machines of the early nineteenth century with contemporary theoretical concerns with gender representation and the posthuman."— William Davis, author of Romanticism, Hellenism, and the Philosophy of Nature"Romantic Automata is a strong collection of essays that engages a broad spectrum of European Romanticism. It fills a real need in the current scholarship of Romanticism as it connects the literary fascination with automata, dolls, and machines of the early nineteenth century with contemporary theoretical concerns with gender representation and the posthuman."— William Davis, author of Romanticism, Hellenism, and the Philosophy of Nature"Romantic Automata is fascinating if idiosyncratic, and I enjoyed reading the essays immensely. Exploring literary representations of the relationship between the mechanical and the human or organic, this well-researched collection brings a range of theoretical approaches and primary sources to bear on an otherwise largely canonical debate. The readings are insightful and original, the arguments compelling and clear."— Ghislaine McDayter, author of Byromania and the Birth of Celebrity Culture". . . a rich volume full of interesting topics and novel insights that makes a significant contribution to the study of the early history of posthumanism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries."— European Romantic Review