The Armor Network: Medieval Prostheses and Degenerative Posthuman Bodies

229 Pages·2016·1.83 MB·English

by  Trina Elerts

UC Riverside
UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Title
The Armor Network: Medieval Prostheses and Degenerative Posthuman Bodies
Permalink
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7ms8388w
Author
Papica, Raymund
Publication Date
2016

Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
RIVERSIDE

The Armor Network:
Medieval Prostheses and Degenerative Posthuman Bodies

A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction
of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

in

English

by

Raymund Papica

June 2016

Dissertation Committee:
Dr. Andrea Denny-Brown, Chairperson
Dr. John M. Ganim
Dr. James Tobias
Copyright by
Raymund Papica
2016
The Dissertation of Raymund Papica is approved:

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________
Committee Chairperson

University of California, Riverside
Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all the members of my dissertation committee at the University of
California, Riverside, for their advice and encouragement: Dr. John M. Ganim, Dr. James
Tobias, Dr. Deborah Willis, Dr. Jeanette Kohl, and especially the chair of my committee,
Dr. Andrea Denny-Brown, for all of her guidance and willingness to see me through this
project.

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To my grandmother,
Crescencia S. Papica
A quest fulfilled

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ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION

The Armor Network:
Medieval Prostheses and Degenerative Posthuman Bodies

by

Raymund Papica

Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in English
University of California, Riverside, June 2016
Dr. Andrea Denny-Brown, Chairperson

By studying depictions of armor in The Canterbury Tales, Le Morte D’Arthur, and The
Faerie Queene, and by seeing how these works help us understand medievalism in
contemporary media, this dissertation investigates how armored bodies function as a way
to think through the problematics of posthuman transformations. This project repositions
the way in which premodern masculine identity was often predicated upon how bodies
were constructed with, and connected to, multiple objects, nonhuman figures, and
fluctuating interpretations of machinic evolution. Furthermore, this study of armor is
concerned with the degeneration of bodies damaged by war and contagion, as well as the
instability and inadequacy of the body’s boundaries. Armor can be fragmented,
assembled, and remixed with other armorial pieces and materials. Through an
interdisciplinary approach, this project performs the task of tracing a longer history
concerned with armored bodies, faulty ideologies, and technological anxieties. Studying
the fictionalized use of armored bodies across literary history pushes us to question the
results of technological augmentation. Each chapter studies the processes in which a body
transforms into an armored posthuman. Armor, this project argues, can be thought of as
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part of a posthuman assemblage that collects and develops various narrative strands about
prosthetic transformations.

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Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Chapter 1: Chaucer’s Knight and Squire: 15
Equine Prostheses, Armorial Augmentations,
and Masculine Degenerations

Chapter 2: Smiting, Cleansing, and Becoming-Sacred: 74
Embracing Bloody Degeneration in Le Morte D’Arthur

Chapter 3: Armored Knights and Armored Automatons: 116
The Legend of Justice and the Triple-Bodied Assemblage

Chapter 4: Digital Armor and Becoming-Medieval: 162
Simulated Medievalisms and Learning How to Die

Bibliography 209

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Illustrations List

Figure 1: Image from Iron Man 2. Palladium poisoning 173
and Stark’s degenerated body.

Figure 2: Image from Iron Man’s Mark I Armor. 174

Figure 3: Image of Destiny’s “Iron Companion Vestments.” 185

Figure 4: Comparison of Destiny’s Iron Companion Mask with 187
A sixteenth century closed burgonet.

Figure 5: Comparison of thirteenth century armor with simulated 188
armor from Destiny

Figure 6: Image of Destiny’s “Crest of the Alpha Lupi.” 190

Figure 7: Image from Destiny. A comparison of Titan and 193
Hive Armor

Figure 8: Images from Edge of Tomorrow’s New Jacket Armor 197

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