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, communication, entertainment and monitoring devices. In parallel, psychologists, artists and writers became interested from the late nineteenth century onwards in psychological automatism – forms of unconscious thought and behaviour. The act of writing forms a bridge between the realms of the physical and the psychological, for example, in the idea of ‘automatic writing’ which was at the heart of surrealism. This module will explore the ways in which writers confronted, with amusement, fascination, envy, rage, excitement, unease, ambition and revulsion, a world increasingly governed by automatic processes, and negotiated the mediation of literary and artistic expression was mediated through printing, typewriters, gramophones and cinematic apparatus.
Assessment details
End semester 4000 word essay, 100%
Teaching pattern
Weekly 2 hour seminars