MINSOO KANG. Sublime Dreams of Living Machines: The Automaton in the European Imagination.
Patricia Fara
Few academic authors boast the distinction of having won a prize for fantasy and horror fiction, Minsoo Kang is unusual in bringing to study history expertise both popular writer professional literary scholar. In his second non-fiction book, explores how meaning fascination automata have changed over time. Although he does describe technological aspects such machines, mainly concerned with more interesting endeavor examining their emotional intellectual implications. Automata are simultaneously captivating disturbing, transcending boundaries between life death, natural artificial, so provoking mixed yet powerful responses. aims, writes, launch imagination that will focus not on what happened, but people fantasized about. this first foray, starts Homer Hero, thus making it immediately apparent an ambitious project. Very sensibly, has drawn limits around it. Despite personal interest East Asian history, restricts himself geographically Europe, pauses only briefly classical world before leaping forward medieval times finally coming halt interwar period shortly after Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927). As points out, continue into digitized half twentieth century would demand separate volume shift toward United States. He organized material chronologically repeatedly emphasizes crucial consider automaton's significance within its historical time-frame. Alert pitfalls inherent type longitudinal study, reprimands previous wrongly conflating conceptual understanding manifested one archetypal symbol.
The American Historical Review