Electronic Eros
Bodies and Desire in the Postindustrial Age
Claudia Springer(Author)
Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.
Published on 1. November 2000
Book
Paperback/Softback
240 pages
978-0-485-30078-9 (ISBN)
Description
A study of the "love affair" between humans and machines, which has now expanded into cyberspace, where computer technology seems to promise heightened erotic fulfilment and the threat of human obsolescence. The author explores the techno-erotic imagery in films, cyberpunk fiction, comic books, television, software, and writing on virtual reality and artificial intelligence, showing how these futuristic images actually erode current debates concerning gender roles and sexuality. Drawing on psychoanalytical and film theory, as well as the history of technology, the author offers an analysis of eroticism and gender in such films as "RoboCop", "The Terminator", "Eve of Destruction" and "Lawnmower Man", and cyberpunk books such as "Neuromancer", "Count Zero", "Virtual Light", "A Fire in the Sun", and "Lady El". She also looks at comic books like "Cyberpunk" and "Interface", and at the television series "Mann and Machine", demonstrating that while new technologies have inspired change in some pop culture texts, others stubbornly recycle conventions from the past, refusing to come to terms with the new social order.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
240pp illustrations, notes
Dimensions
Height: 227 mm
Width: 152 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-485-30078-9 (9780485300789)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Content
Introduction - techno-eroticism; deleting the body; the pleasure of the interface; virtual sex; muscular circuitry; digital rage; men and machine women.