Anatomy of a Robot

Literature, Cinema, and the Cultural Work of Artificial People

Add to my list

by Despina Kakoudaki

Type: Studies
Subject: On Films > Characters
Keywords: science fiction, characters, artificial intelligence
Publishing date: 2014
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Language: English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 272 pages
6 ¼ x 9 inches (16 x 23 cm)

ISBN

978-0-8135-6215-5

User Ratings

(0 vote)

Average rating:

0	rating	= We can do without
0	rating	= Good book
0	rating	= Excellent book
0	rating	= Unique / a reference

Your rating: -

Book Presentation:
Why do we find artificial people fascinating? Drawing from a rich fictional and cinematic tradition, Anatomy of a Robot explores the political and textual implications of our perennial projections of humanity onto figures such as robots, androids, cyborgs, and automata. In an engaging, sophisticated, and accessible presentation, Despina Kakoudaki argues that, in their narrative and cultural deployment, artificial people demarcate what it means to be human. They perform this function by offering us a non-human version of ourselves as a site of investigation. Artificial people teach us that being human, being a person or a self, is a constant process and often a matter of legal, philosophical, and political struggle.

By analyzing a wide range of literary texts and films (including episodes from Twilight Zone, the fiction of Philip K. Dick, Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go, Metropolis, The Golem, Frankenstein, The Terminator, Iron Man, Blade Runner, and I, Robot), and going back to alchemy and to Aristotle’s Physics and De Anima, she tracks four foundational narrative elements in this centuries-old discourse— the fantasy of the artificial birth, the fantasy of the mechanical body, the tendency to represent artificial people as slaves, and the interpretation of artificiality as an existential trope. What unifies these investigations is the return of all four elements to the question of what constitutes the human.

This focused approach to the topic of the artificial, constructed, or mechanical person allows us to reconsider the creation of artificial life. By focusing on their historical provenance and textual versatility, Kakoudaki elucidates artificial people’s main cultural function, which is the political and existential negotiation of what it means to be a person.

About the Author:
DESPINA KAKOUDAKI is an associate professor in the department of literature at American University in Washington, D.C.

Press Reviews:
"Wide-ranging in its examples, erudite, politically relevant, and profound in its implications, this book is essential for anyone interested in our long history with created others."

— Sherryl Vint

"Anatomy of a Robot offers an insightful analysis of the cultural work artificial people perform as they elucidate what it is to be human; a refreshing intervention in the field and impressive in its breadth."
— Teresa Heffernan

"This book is literary criticism that looks at the robot as a trope across media, from ancient myths to modern-day movies. The book has four overarching themes that Kakoudaki presents in separate chapters: 'The Artificial Birth,' 'The Mechanical Body,' 'The Mechanical Slave,' and 'The Existential Cyborg.' [Kakoudaki provides] a great deal of historical and cultural depth, exploring a diversity of tropes across all of recorded history. Highly recommended."
- Choice

See the publisher website: Rutgers University Press

> From the same author: