The Rise of the Mechanimal: How Authors of Scientific Romances Imagined Future Vehicles
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The Rise of the Mechanimal: How Authors of Scientific Romances Imagined Future Vehicles By Aaron M. Long M.A., American University, 2011 M.A., Denver Seminary, 2005 B.A., Wheaton College, 2002 Copyright 2020 Aaron M. Long Submitted to the graduate degree program in English and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ______________________________ Chair: Dr. Kathryn Conrad ______________________________ Dr. Anna Neill ______________________________ Dr. Paul Outka ______________________________ Dr. Phillip Drake Date Defended: 8 May 2020 The Dissertation Committee for Aaron Long certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: The Rise of the Mechanimal: How Authors of Scientific Romances Imagined Future Vehicles ______________________________ Chair: Dr. Kathryn Conrad Date approved: 8 May 2020 ii Abstract Whereas many have surmised that the technological vision for biorobotics originated with science fiction, it actually originated much earlier, in a constellation of science-influenced works of fiction in the romance tradition little-known as the “scientific romance.” The scientific romance has been suppressed by science fiction scholarship, and this suppression has occluded science fiction’s own connection with a history of imperial politics, including imperialism’s appropriation of scientific inquiry for its own ends. As nineteenth-century scientists sought to legitimate their research in terms of imperial priorities, anatomists and physiologists lent their discoveries to the technological development of vehicles that would reshape society economically and militarily. These vehicles, patterned after the bodies of nonhuman animals and designed to replicate their locomotion, are “mechanimals.” Samuel Butler elided the difference between animal and machine by imagining mechanical development in evolutionary terms, which also portrayed machines as extensions of the self in space. He saw the technological ingenuity required to develop such machines as essentially British, and argued that this is why the British Empire would outrun its European competitors. Jules Verne designed the mechanimal body by refining the designs of the vessels the Royal Navy used in polar exploration, ultimately imagining a cetacean submarine that solved the problems and surmounted the obstacles faced by surface ships. His machines’ effectiveness, predicated on their biomimicry, imbued the biomimetic with an aura of futurism. Tom Greer drew attention to the fact that, when he was writing in 1885, Ireland was scientifically more advanced than England, and imagined the Irish Rising that would occur should a scientifically-educated Irishman develop a flying-machine before the English did. In contrast with the wonder Verne’s machines inspired, Greer incited terror, particularly at the notion that a flying-machine would bypass the English iii Channel and the Irish Sea, making England more susceptible to invasion than ever. H. G. Wells commingled wonder and terror in The War in the Air, which reads as a propagandistic attempt to get the Americans to develop mechanimal vehicles since England, Wells’s own country, was technologically lagging. This was one part of Wells’s oeuvre, which he used to influence the modern future throughout the world. iv This dissertation is dedicated to my beloved parents, Loren and Brenda, and to my best friend and partner in life, Dr. Addie E. Long. I have loved this work because you have loved me so well. v Acknowledgements In Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, Captain Nemo intimates to his passenger, Dr. Aronnax, that the Nautilus, Nemo’s ship, has been assembled out of parts manufactured across the globe; in at least that way, this dissertation is like the Nautilus. The parts that have been assembled into this whole (miraculously, it sails!) have come from across the globe, and thanks are due to all who were involved. First and foremost, my utmost gratitude goes to Dr. Kathryn Conrad, who directed this dissertation. In particular, her influence accounts for the chapters on Tom Greer and H. G. Wells. Professor Conrad encouraged me to read Greer’s A Modern Daedalus and kindly directed me to secondary sources as we corresponded about animal locomotion. I first read Wells’s The War in the Air in her graduate seminar, Twentieth-Century British Literature and Technology. She served as my teaching mentor during fall 2014, when I taught Wings as Weapons from the Iliad to Iron Man, from which this dissertation began to take coherent shape. As it turned into essays, she encouraged me to present them at conferences and introduced me to her colleagues at the American Conference for Irish Studies, who have provided valuable feedback. She was alternately my toughest critic, my best sounding board, and an audience for jokes with arcane punchlines. Somehow, she offered so much help even while pursuing her own research, including a recently-published co-edited collection, serving our department first as Director of Undergraduate Studies and then as Chair, and while becoming full Professor. Dr. Anna Neill has been a model of professional grace and good humor. I first encountered Butler’s Erewhon in her graduate seminar, Nineteenth-Century British Literature and Evolution, and her knowledge of nineteenth-century science has been invaluable. Professor Neill has been an insightful, gentle, but critical reader of my work; without her feedback this vi would be a much less disciplined piece of thinking. Moreover, she encouraged me to apply for the funding that made possible a week of research in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia, in fall 2015, during which I first encountered John Richardson’s Ichthylogy of the Voyage of the HMS Erebus and Terror, the book that sparked my interest in British polar exploration. Professor Neill advised my research while serving our department as Chair. Most memorably, her care for the well-being of graduates and adjuncts in our department, her activism in concert with Native Americans during the Dakota Access Pipeline crisis, and her love for our nonhuman companions have embodied the spirit of anti-imperial thinking and protection of the disenfranchised and the voiceless. Dr. Paul Outka’s essay on Frankenstein inspired me before we had ever met, and it has been a treat to work with him during my doctoral years. Professor Outka’s seminar on Ecocriticism inflected the critical stance of this project, and his guidance helped me decide where to present research as it became presentable. His views on how vehicles have influenced the development of human bodies and human society have been the ideal foil for my own thinking on these matters, and his sense of humor, earthy and subversive, made even my comprehensive exam an entertaining conversation. Dr. Phillip Drake models a unique blend of industriousness and congeniality. His interest in this project has reassured me of its value, and his compendious knowledge of both established literary works and contemporary science fiction has been a boon. Somehow, he made time to advise this dissertation while serving our department as Director of Graduate Studies, a contribution for which I am humbly grateful. Dr. Nathan Wood, from KU History, has served as an external reviewing committee member for both my comprehensive exam and dissertation defense. While such a role is vii normally a procedural formality, Professor Wood has enriched the process by raising questions rooted in his own research in the history of Eastern European transportation. In addition to these, there are several others in the English Department who deserve thanks. Dr. Byron Santangelo’s graduate seminar on Postcolonial Theory, particularly his work on decolonizing knowledge, is the other influence on this dissertation’s critical stance. Professor Santangelo’s intensity in class, advising conversations, and exams left little doubt about the stakes of this sort of work: it is about real people, in real places, with sad histories that must be understood lest they be repeated in the future. The initiative that Professor Santangelo took to assemble a writing group in Spring 2014 introduced me to many of the colleagues whose work I will read for decades to come. Dr. Ann Rowland’s spring 2013 seminar, Methods, Theory and Professionalism, helped me realistically prepare for archive research at the University of Kansas, the University of Iowa, the University of Melbourne, and the University of Sydney. Dr. Doreen Fowler and the Travel Funds Committee deserve thanks for processing a belated request for the funding that made a week in Australia possible; out of that time came much of the research on Lawrence Hargrave and the H.M.S. Erebus and H.M.S. Terror that appears here. Dr. Dorice Elliott’s graduate seminar, Nineteenth-Century British Literature and Mental Science, added valuable historical and literary context to both my comprehensive exams and this dissertation. Dr. N. Katherine Hayles’s summer 2014 Holmes Institute Seminar, The Posthuman, introduced me to Nicole Shukin’s work, in the spirit of which I make this humble contribution. Dr. Giselle Anatol and Darren Canady have had open doors for years and have offered professionalizing perspective on writing, teaching, and navigating the machinations of a large state university. My graduate colleagues helped work out many of the ideas that appear here (and put up with an inordinate amount of bad puns): Meghara Eichhorn-Hicks, Dr. Clare Echterling, the late Justin viii Hampton, Dr. Ann Martinez, Dr. Martha Baldwin, Dr. T. Renee Harris, Annie Lowe, Isaac Bell, Adam Mills, Dr. Patrick Gabbard, Dr. Rebekah Taussig, and Dr. Amanda Sladek, to name but a few. Thanks are also due to various writing partners, including Peter W. Carrillo, Cody Dye, Kevin Lee, and Dr. Howard Graham. And lest I forget the subtle influence of those I have seen weekly, if not daily, for years, thanks also to my neighbors on Wescoe 2: Dr. Lauren Kiehna, Robbin Williams, Leighann Dicks, and Hannah Scupham from KU English, and Andrew Avery and Marjorie Galelli from KU History.