The enlightenment cyborg: a history of communications and control in the human machine, 1660-1830

359 Pages·2007·7.95 MB·English

by  Muri, Allison

THE ENLIGHTENMENT CYBORG:
A HISTORY OF COMMUNICATIONS AND CONTROL
IN THE HUMAN MACHINE, 1660–1830
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ALLISON MURI
The Enlightenment Cyborg
A History of Communications and
Control in the Human Machine,
1660–1830
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
www.utppublishing.com
© University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2007
Toronto Buffalo London
Printed in Canada
isbn 10: 0-8020-8850-3
isbn 13: 978-0-8020-8850-5
Printed on acid-free paper
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Muri, Allison, 1965–
The Enlightenment cyborg : a history of communications and control
in the human machine, 1660–1830 / Allison Muri.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 13: 978-0-8020-8850-5 (bound)
isbn 10: 0-8020-8850-3 (bound)
1. Cyborgs – History – Textbooks. 2. Human-machine systems –
History – Textbooks. I. Title.
ta167.m86 2006 303.48'3 c2006-906162-9
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance
to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the
Ontario Arts Council.
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian
Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to
Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for
its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the
Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).
for Patricia and Philip,
Neaera and Marya,
for Ray
and for Club La Mettrie
Imagination is the soul, since it plays all the roles of the soul ... It is
imagination ... which adds the piquant charm of voluptuousness to the
tenderness of an amorous heart; which makes tenderness bud in the
study of the philosopher and of the dusty pedant, which, in a word,
creates scholars as well as orators and poets. Foolishly decried by some,
vainly praised by others, and misunderstood by all; it follows not only in
the train of the graces and of the fine arts, it not only describes but can
also measure nature.
L’homme machine, 1747
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
1 Introduction 3
The Problem of ‘Modernity’ and Moralizing in Postmodern
Cyborg Discourse 7
The Problem of Descartes, Dualism, and ‘Enlightenment’:
Subjectivities in Cyborg Discourse 13
A New Schema for Cyborg Theory 17
The Problem of Definition 19
The Enlightenment Cyborg 24
2 Matter, Mechanism, and the Soul 32
Defining the Cyborg: Molecules, Electrons, and Spirit 41
Defining the Man-Machine I: Mechanicks and Matter 45
Defining the Man-Machine II: From Aether to Ethernet? 63
3 Some Contexts for Human Machines and the Body Politics:
Early Modern/Postmodern Government and Feedback 86

Context 1: The Nervous System and Machines for
Communicating 92
Context 2: Communications and Control in the Cyborg 95
Context 3: Communications and Control in the Man-Machine 102
Context 4: Clockwork versus Feedback in Human Machines 109
4 The Man-Machine: Communications, Circulations,
and Commerce 117
Thomas Willis’s Nervous Government 118
viii Contents
Communications and the Sovereignty of the Soul in
The Anatomy of the Brain 120
The Extension of the Soul in Two Discourses Concerning
the Soul of Brutes 131
Literary Communications: Materialism and the Mechanical
Operation of the Spirit 141
The Man-Machine and Intellectual Electricity 158
5 The Woman-Machine: Techno-lust and Techno-reproduction 166
The Female Cyborg in Twentieth-century Fiction and Film, or,
Why Do Cyborgs Need Boobs? 167
Cyborg Reproductive Technologies in the Twentieth Century 172
Female Cyborg Origin Stories 175
Where’s the Woman-Machine? 180
Female Vanity and Mechanick Art 183
Domestic Machines? 189
Sex Machines: The Mechanical Operation of the Slit 192
Reproductive Machines: Knowledge, ‘Geometrical Certainty,’
and the Automatic Womb 198
6 Cyborg Conceptions: Bodies, Texts, and the Future of
Human Spirit 226
Virtually Human: The Electronic Page, the Archived Body,
and Human Identity 228
Some Conceptual Frameworks: The Electronic Page and
the Book of Life 231
The Electronic Page and Human Spirit 236
The Archived Body 238
Of Books and Spirit 245
Concluding Remarks 248
Notes 255
References 273
Illustration Credits 295
Index 297
Illustrations follow pages 150 and 182
Acknowledgments
First, thanks to Raymond Stephanson and Larry Stewart for that remark-
able graduate seminar so many years ago that set this course of research
in motion. Many thanks to Robert Markley, Peter Stoicheff, Andrew
Taylor and to Peter Walmsley for their encouraging and perceptive
comments on various chapters. Thanks, too, to the two anonymous
readers at University of Toronto Press whose constructive remarks re-
sulted in a much improved manuscript. Thank you especially to Ray, who
read these chapters many times over, and whose encouragement and
support were unfailing.
Thanks also to Richard A. Banvard, Paul Bidwell, Hilary Clark, Paul
Coddington, Ron Cooley, Luba Frastacky and Anne Dondertman,
Len Findlay, Gordon Fulton, Danielle Garnier, Stephen Greenberg,
Peter J. Knapp, Terry Matheson, Siobhan McMenemy, Miles Muri, Taran
Schindler, and Susan Walker.
I am grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
of Canada and the Arts Research Board of McMaster University for
financial assistance. The English Department at McMaster University
generously provided resources for the postdoctoral research that led to
the completion of this manuscript.