Cinema and the Dream of the Living Machine

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by Joseph Zornado and Sara Reilly

Type

Studies

Subject

Genre > Science Fiction

Keywords

science fiction, technology, artificial intelligence

Publishing date

2026 (August 12, 2026)

Publisher

Routledge

Collection

Routledge Advances in Film Studies

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Hardcover • 204 pages
6 ¼ x 9 ½ inches (16 x 24 cm)

ISBN

978-1-032-99451-2

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Book Presentation:
Cinema and the Dream of the Living Machine offers a comprehensive critical history of artificial intelligence (AI) in Western cinema, tracing how films from Metropolis to contemporary science fiction transform technological anxiety into cultural fantasy.

Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalysis, ideological critique, and close film analysis, the book examines how AI repeatedly appears as servant, authority, lover, weapon, and mirror of human desire. Across nine chapters, Zornado and Reilly map recurring tropes, from disembodied systems of control to intimate companion machines that show how cinematic AI reflects capitalism, power, alienation, and the crisis of subjectivity. By treating AI not as speculative technology but as a symbolic formation, the book enables readers to understand how popular cinema diagnoses social contradictions and ethical failures, equipping students and researchers with conceptual resources to analyze contemporary AI culture with greater historical awareness, theoretical rigor, and critical clarity.

Designed for scholars, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates in film studies, media studies, cultural theory, and science and technology studies, the book combines historical depth with a distinctive theoretical framework. An original “Cinematic AI Fantasy Matrix” provides readers with a practical analytical tool for comparative study in the appendix.

About the authors:
Joseph Zornado is Professor of English at Rhode Island College, USA.Sara Reilly is Adjunct Instructor and Assistant Director of Advising at Rhode Island College, USA.

See the publisher website: Routledge