Literature and Machines
FRSEM-UA 572.001
Instructor: Nicola Cipani
Fall 2015 - Thursday 12:30PM-3:00PM
Room: Casa Italiana 201
Office and office hours: Casa Italiana, 4th floor, Tue 3:30-4:30 or by appointment.
nc39@nyu.edu
Machine metaphors and narratives play an important role in modern literature. They convey
beliefs, anxieties, shifts, and reflections on key topics such as the nature of consciousness, the
creative process, the dynamics of desire and gratification, gender roles, the organization of society,
the meaning of 'nature', etc. This course explores different manifestations of the machine theme
in literature, broadly clustered around the following categories: imaginary machines constituting
the centerpiece of narrative plots; machine aesthetic as modernist ideal (e.g. Marinetti’s
“identification of man with motor”); and mechanization of the inventive process (text-generating
machines). You will have the opportunity to read and discuss a selection of works from different
periods and cultural contexts (Victorian era, Belle Époque, Futurist period, Post-war
experimental literature), representative of a wide spectrum of dispositions, ranging from the
dreamy immersion in virtual realities to enlightened machine-assisted awakening, from the
obsessive fear of mechanistic dehumanization to the desire of man-machine fusion.
Course requirements
- Required course readings are either posted on nyu classes in advance of due date or accessible
online through nyu libraries (links are provided in the bibliography below). Each week, you
will be assigned both primary source material and a secondary source essay. In most cases,
you will be asked to read an excerpt from the primary source (specific page assignments will be
provided) and the whole of the accompanying essay. As a rough guide, you can expect to read
between 50 and 100 pages per week. Readings and class discussion will be in English —
knowledge of foreign languages is not required.
- Attendance at every class is mandatory. Except in case of documented illness/medical
emergency (doctor's note required) or religious holiday (please notify me at the beginning of
the semester if you anticipate such an absence), every absence will impact your grade.
- The following graded written assignments are required as part of the course:
8 weekly response papers (1-2 pages each) (RP)
mid-semester paper (5-7 pages) (MP)
final research paper (8-10 pages) (FP)
- Papers must include a bibliography and at least parenthetical citation to any author cited or
used as a source of argument and/or information. Please review the university's policy on
plagiarism, as it will be strictly enforced. Students must submit their papers within the
designated deadlines. Late submissions will negatively impact the grade.
- Please note that class participation is essential—you are expected to actively participate in
class discussions and speak up when you have questions. Each week, I will ask for 1 or 2
student volunteers to prepare a presentation of the material for the following week. Every
student is required to present at least once, and the presentation will count towards your
participation grade.
- if you are having trouble with any aspect of the writing process, please be reminded of the
following useful resources:
a) The University Learning Center (ULC), which provides peer tutoring for many
courses, workshops on study skills (e.g., time management or citation norms), and
special programming for international students (see www.nyu.edu/ulc)
b)
The Writing Center, which provides one-on-one consultations with Expository
Writing Program faculty trained in writing pedagogy. (Note: The Expository
Writing Program also provides assistance in the residence halls). Additionally, the
Dean’s Office, the ULC & the Writing Center have teamed up to offer writing
resources specifically for the FS program.
www.nyu.edu/cas/ewp/html/writing_center.html
c)
The Bobst Library online guide designed to accompany the Research Readiness
Workshops: http://guides.nyu.edu/friendly.php?s=ccp
Grade breakdown: midterm paper (MP) 20%, final research paper (FP) 30%, response
papers (RP) 30%, class participation 20%.
Jan 27
Introduction — the Machine Metaphor
Excerpts from Andrew Ure, Harriet Martineau, Karl Marx*
Samuel Butler, Darwin Among the Machines *
Ketabgian 2011
* in class readings
Feb 3
"Mr. Poe has invented Science Fiction".
Samuel Butler, Erewhon
E.A. Poe, The Ballon Hoax; Hans Phaal.
Grimstad 2010; Tresch 2002. RP
Feb 10
Verne and the Magic of Electricity
Jules Verne, The Castle of the Carpathians.
Foucault 2000; Mikkonen 2001. RP
Feb 17
Eve as Android
Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Tomorrow's Eve
Massimo Bontempelli, Dea by Dea; Eva Ultima
Fritz Lang, Metropolis
de Dobay Rifely 1996; Lathers 1996; Willis 2006. RP
Feb 24
Desiring Devices
Alfred Jarry, The Surmale
Deleuze and Guattari 2008; Carrouges 1975. RP
Mar 3
Roussel’s Contraptions
Raymond Roussel, Locus Solus; Impressions of Africa
Foucault 2004; Ashbery 2000. RP
Mar 10
Kafka: Technology and the Execution Apparatus
Franz Kafka, The Air Show at Brescia; In the Penal Colony.
Corngold and Wagner 2011; Weinstein 1982. RP
Mar 16-22 spring recess - - no class
Mar 24
Machine Aesthetics in Futurism
Choice of Futurist Manifestos.
F.T. Marinetti, Mafarka the Futurist.
Schnapp 1993; Berghaus 2009. MP
Mar 31
Sound Machines / Ballet Méchanique
Music samples from Luigi Russolo, Arsenij Avraamov, George Antheil.
Fernand Leger, Ballet Méchanique (screening)
Kittler 1999; Pound 1996; Smirnov 2013. RP
Apr 7
The Bio-Adapter
Oswald Wiener, The Improvement of Central Europe
Wiener and Britt 2001. RP; FP Topic
Apr 14
Writing Machines: Early Text-Producing Devices
Ramon Llull, Ars Brevis
Giordano Bruno, The Incantations of Circe
Yates 1966; Bolzoni 2001. Outline and Bibliography for FP
Apr 21
Writing Machines: Roussel's Recipe
Raymond Roussel, How I Wrote Certain of My Books
Porush 1985. Draft of FP
Apr 28
Writing Machines: The Oulipo
Raymond Queneau, Hundred Thousand Billion Poems
Italo Calvino, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller
Alison 2006.
May 5
Writing Machines: Balestrini's Combinatorics
Nanni Balestrini, Tristano
Eco 2014. FP
Bibliography
Alison, James. 2006. Automatism, Arbitrariness, and the Oulipian Author. French Forum (31:2),
111-125. nyu library link
Ashbery, John. 2000. The Bachelor Machines of Raymond Roussel, in Other Traditions.
Harvard: Harvard University Press, 45-62.
Berghaus, Günter. 2009. Futurism and the Technological Imagination Poised between
Machine Cult and Machine Angst. In: Futurism and the Technological Imagination, Edited by
Günther Berghaus. Amsterdam/ New York: Rodopi: 1-40
Bolzoni, Lina. 2001. The Gallery of Memory: Literary and Iconographic Models in the Age of the Printing
Press. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Carrouges, Michel. 1975. "Directions for Use." In The Bachelor Machines, ed. Jean Clair, Harald
Szeemann, and C. Marche. Venice: Alfieri, 21-49.
Corngold, Stanley, and Benno Wagner. 2011. Franz Kafka: The Ghosts in the Machine.
Northwestern University Press.
de Dobay Rifelj, Carol. 1996. "Minds, Computers, and Hadaly." In: Jeering Dreamers: Essays on
'L'Ève Future,' ed. John Anzalone. Amsterdam: Rodopi: 127-39.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. 2008. “Balance Sheet for ‘Desiring-Machines’.”
Chaosophy: Texts and Interviews: 1972-1977. Ed. Sylvère Lotringer, Trans. David L Sweet,
Jarred Becker, & Taylor Adkins. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 90–115.
Eco, Umberto. 2014. Introduction to Nanni Balestrini, Tristano. A Novel. London/ New York:
Verso Books.
Foucault, Michel. 2000. "Behind the Fable" in: Aesthetics, Method and Epistemology: 137-145.
googlebooks
— — —. 2004. Death and the Labyrinth. The World of Raymond Roussel. New York: Continuum.
Gaborik, Patricia. "La Donna Mobile": Massimo Bontempelli's "Nostra Dea" As Fascist
Modernism." Modern Drama 50.2 (2007): 210-232. International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance
with Full Text. Web. 25 Apr. 2014.
http://ezproxy.library.nyu.edu:2311/journals/modern_drama/v050/50.2gaborik.pdf
Grimstad, Paul. 2010. "Antebellum AI:“Maelzel's Chess-Player” and Poe's Reverse
Constraints." Poetics Today 31.1, 107-125.
http://poeticstoday.dukejournals.org/content/31/1/107.full.pdf+html
Haken, Hermann; Uno Svedin; Anders Karlqvist;. 1993. The Machine as Metaphor and Tool.
Berlin/ New York: Springer.
Ketabgian, Tamara. 2011. The Lives of Machines: The Industrial Imaginary in Victorian Literature and
Culture. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press
Kittler, Friedrich A. 1999. Gramophone, film, typewriter. Stanford University Press.
La Mettrie, Julien Offray de, Man a Machine. La Salle, Illinois: Open Court 1993.
Lathers, Marie. 1996. The aesthetics of artifice: Villiers's L'Eve future. Chapel Hill: UNC
Department of Romance Languages.
Mikkonen, Kai. 2001. The Electric Narrative in Jules Verne's Le Château des Carpathes and Paris
au XXe siècle. In: The plot machine: the French novel and the Bachelor Machines in the electric years (18801914). Amsterdam/ New York: Rodopi, 69-107.
Porush, David. 1985. Roussel's device for the perfection of fiction. In: The Soft Machine
London: Methuen.
Pound, Ezra. 1966. Machine Art and Other Writings: The Lost Thought of the Italian Years. Ed. Maria
Luisa Ardizzone. Duke University Press.
Schnapp, Jeffrey. 1994. Propeller talk. Modernism/modernity 1.3: 153-178.
Smirnov, Andrei. 2013. Sound In Z: Experiments In Sound And Electronic Music In Early 20th
Century Russia. Köln: Walther Koenig.
Tresch, John. 2002. "Extra! Extra! Poe invents science fiction." The Cambridge companion to
Edgar Allan Poe: 113-132.
Weinstein, Arnold. Kafka's Writing Machine. Metamorphosis in the Penal Colony. Studies in
Twentieth Century Literature 7.1 (1982): 21-33.
Wiener, Oswald; David Britt. 2001. Remarks on Some Tendencies of the "Vienna Group". The
MIT Press. Vol. 97 (Summer, 2001), pp. 120-130 http://www.jstor.org/stable/779089
Willis, Martin. 2006. Mesmerists, monsters, and machines: science fiction and the cultures of science in the
nineteenth century. Kent (OH): Kent State University Press.
Yates, Frances A. 1966. The Art of Memory. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.