The Lives of Machines
Ketabgian, Tamara S.
Investigating British literature from the 1830s to the 1870s, this study examines forms of feeling and community that combine the vital and the mechanical, the human and the non-human, in surprisingly hybrid and productive alliances. Challenging accounts of industrial alienation that still persist, it defines mechanical character and feeling not as erasures or negations of self, but as robust and nuanced entities in their own right.