New Romantic Cyborgs New Romantic Cyborgs Romanticism, Information Technology, and the End of the Machine Mark Coeckelbergh The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England © 2017 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. This book was set in Stone Sans and Stone Serif by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Coeckelbergh, Mark, author. Title: New romantic cyborgs : romanticism, information technology, and the end of the machine / Mark Coeckelbergh. Description: Cambridge, MA : MIT Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016021510 | ISBN 9780262035460 (hardcover : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Technology--Philosophy. | Human-machine systems--Philosophy. | Information technology--Philosophy. | Cyborgs--Philosophy. | Romanticism. Classification: LCC T14 .C5726 2017 | DDC 601--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016021510 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To Tim O’Hagan and Nicholas Dent, from whom I learned a lot about Rousseau Contents Acknowledgments  ix 1 Introduction: The Question Concerning Technology and Romanticism 1 I Romanticism against the Machine 19 2 Romanticism 21 3 Romanticism against the Machine? 71 II Romanticism with the Machine 95 4 Romanticism with the Machine (1): From Frankenstein’s Monster to Hippie Computing 97 5 Romanticism with the Machine (2): Cyberromanticism, Uncanny Robots, Romantic Cyborgs, and Spooky Science 135 III Beyond Romanticism? Beyond the Machine? 209 6 Criticisms of Romanticism and of the End-of-the-Machine Vision 211 7 Beyond Romanticism and beyond Modernity: Toward the (Real) End of the Machine? 253 Notes  281 References  289 Index  301