Techno-Prosthetic Romantic FuturismCritical BeatdownThere's no returning to a Romanticism prior to the neural prosthesis. [1] No amount of sabotage will produce it. You can't throw a shoe into the Internet. The better alternative is to follow Blake's advice, strap a sandal on your head, and walk into eternity. [2] This would mean accepting technologies of simulation, sampling, and recombination for what they are--and using them to remix Romanticism. Imagine the possibilities! Blake meets Ginzburg--and conceives! Notes1. I remember with chagrin the annual meeting of the North American Society for Studies in Romanticism in Tempe, Arizona, 2000. Poor Kate Hayles was all but hounded from her keynote by scholars who had too much integrity to credence her suggestion that technology could reshape scholarship. We are such visionaries! 2. As Blake urges in "Milton," The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, ed. David V. Erdman, 2nd ed. rev (California: U of California P, 1988). Navigation |