Collignon, F. (2012) The Ballistic Flight of an Automatic Duck. Orbit: Writing Around Pynchon, 1 (2).
Abstract
This article analyses Jacques de Vaucanson's automatic duck and its successive appearances in Thomas Pynchon's work (both Mason & Dixon and, by extension, Gravity's Rainbow) to discuss the correlations between (self-) evolving technologies and space age gadgets. The Cold War serves, therefore, as the frame of reference for this article, which is further preoccupied with the geographical positions that automatons or prototype cyborgs occupy: the last part of the essay analyses Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project, where mechanical hens stand at the entrance to dreamworlds. Automatic fowl guard, and usher into being, new technologised worlds.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2012 The author. Available under the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Automatic duck; technology; occult; Thomas Pynchon |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > School of English (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 24 Mar 2017 14:07 |
Last Modified: | 24 Mar 2017 14:07 |
Published Version: | http://doi.org/10.7766/orbit.v1.2.23 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Open Library of Humanities |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.7766/orbit.v1.2.23 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:113784 |