Alchemy discussion forum > Bibliography > Articles on alchemy > Do Medieval and Renaissance Androids Presage the Posthuman?
Alchemy discussion forum > Bibliography > Articles on alchemy > Do Medieval and Renaissance Androids Presage the Posthuman? |
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Paul Ferguson Member 
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"In his article "Do Medieval and Renaissance Androids Presage the Posthuman?" Kevin LaGrandeur analyzes the relationships between literary images of artificial humans associated with medieval alchemists and alchemy, their modified reemergence in the Renaissance, and how such androids may forecast the idea of a posthuman subjectivity that is connected with their present-day descendents. For example, the talking brass heads in Robert Greene's two Renaissance plays, The Honorable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay and Alphonsus, Prince of Aragon have their roots in Arabic sources, and the former derives specifically from legends concerning the thirteenth-century alchemist and philosopher Roger Bacon." http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol12/iss3/3/ |
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Alexander Guthrie Stewart Member
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Umm, WTF? I think I'll file that under 'literary' and forget about it. I don't understand what cyborgs have to do with it, being mixes of biological creatures and machine parts, when brass heads are specifically mentioned, brass being a metal not an organic. |
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Paul Ferguson Member
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More on this theme from the same writer here: http://www.academia.edu/411144/_The_Talking_Brass_Head_as_a_Symbol_of_Dangerous_Knowledge_in_Friar_Bacon_and_in_Alphonsus_King_of_Aragon_ |
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