{"product_id":"anatomy-of-a-robot-despina-kakoudaki-9780813562155","title":"Anatomy of a Robot: Literature, Cinema, and the Cultural Work of Artificial People","description":"Why do we find artificial people fascinating? Drawing from a rich fictional and cinematic tradition, \u003ci\u003eAnatomy of a Robot \u003c\/i\u003eexplores 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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBy analyzing a wide range of literary texts and films (including episodes from \u003ci\u003eTwilight Zone\u003c\/i\u003e, the fiction of Philip K. Dick, Kazuo Ishiguro's novel \u003ci\u003eNever Let Me Go, Metropolis, The Golem, Frankenstein, The Terminator, Iron Man, Blade Runner, and I, Robot\u003c\/i\u003e), and going back to alchemy and to Aristotle's \u003ci\u003ePhysics\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eDe Anima\u003c\/i\u003e, 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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Despina Kakoudaki\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0813562155\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780813562155\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Rutgers University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 07\/07\/2014\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 272\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.98lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.07h x 5.82w x 0.47d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e 03\/01\/2015 pg. 1138","brand":"Despina Kakoudaki","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":44072808841471,"sku":"9780813562155","price":38.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_96f61221-4eba-4f74-800c-11ea794c5a1c.jpg?v=1685444056","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/anatomy-of-a-robot-despina-kakoudaki-9780813562155","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}