Module description
Automatic processes multiplied during the course of the twentieth century, moving progressively from industrial settings into everyday life, encompassing medical apparatus, labour-saving and communication and entertainment devices.
In parallel, psychologists, artists and writers became interested from the late nineteenth century onwards in psychological forms of automatism.
The act of writing forms a bridge between the realms of the physical and the psychological, for example, in the idea of the automatic writing which was at the heart of surrealism. This module will explore the ways in which writers confronted, with amusement, fascination, envy, rage and revulsion, a world increasingly governed by automatic processes, and negotiated a world in which literary and artistic expression was mediated through printing, typewriters, gramophones and cinematic apparatus.
Assessment details
Seminar Introductions (10%)
4000 Word Essay (90%)