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The nineteenth-century鈥檚 fascination with the increasingly mechanical and diverse material culture of the time has become a central concern for literary studies. We will focus on the numerous technologies that interact with and in writing of the period. Literature, which is itself a kind of technology, existed long before these developments, but treated them as valuable disseminators, rival media, sources of inspiration and lamentation, and everything in between. This module investigates what constitutes 鈥渢echnology鈥� and 鈥渓iterature鈥� as they evolve together, and the politics and theorization that inevitably accompany such evolution. The module鈥檚 aim is to investigate how these artifacts contribute to an understanding nineteenth-century literature and culture, especially regarding gender, sexuality, race, and disability. While literature is the dominant focus of the module, we will also examine machines, tools, sound recordings, art, automatons, and other objects. This module will emphasize engagement with the material archive as a means of thematizing literature and will require students to think deeply about the material archive鈥檚 relationship to literature and scholarship.

Key to readings below (nb: readings are subject to change):

Bolded texts are literature or primary sources. Unbolded texts are critical works.

Week 1. Introduction: Literature and Technology

• Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897), Ch. 1-14
• Jennifer Wicke, 鈥淰ampiric Typewriting: Dracula and Its Media鈥�

Week 2. Panorama (1792): Envisioning Travel

• William Wells Brown, Panoramic Views of the Scenes in the Life of an American Slave (1849)
• Henry "Box" Brown, Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself (1851)
• Julian Lucas, 鈥淐an Slavery Reenactments Set Us Free?鈥�
• Hollis Robbins, 鈥淔ugitive Mail: The Deliverance of Henry 鈥楤ox鈥� Brown and Antebellum Postal Politics鈥�

Week 3. Train (1804): Mechanizing Travel

• Ellen and William Craft, Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom (1860)
• Mark M. Smith, 鈥淭he Garden in the Machine: Listening to Early American Industrialization鈥�
• selections from Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey

Week 4. Stethoscope (1816): Listening to Bodies

• Mary Seacole, The Wonderful Adventures of Mary Seacole in Many Lands (1857), pp. i-6, 82-154
• Florence Nightingale, Notes on Nursing (1859)
• Jonathan Sterne, 鈥淢ediate Auscultation and Medicine鈥檚 Acoustic Culture,鈥� pp. 99-117
• John Picker, 鈥淓nglish Beat: The Stethoscopic Era鈥檚 Sonic Traces鈥�

Week 5. Camera (1826): Envisioning People

• Frederick Douglass, 鈥淟ecture on Pictures鈥� (1861)
• Julia Margaret Cameron鈥檚 and Lewis Carroll鈥檚 photographs of eminent Victorians
• Mathew Brady鈥檚 Civil War and African American photographs
• John Thomson鈥檚 China photographs
• Robert Aguirre, "Photographing Panama: Eadweard Muybridge and Trans-Hemispheric Modernity"

Week 6. Telegraph (1837): Networks and Transmission

• Emily Dickinson (Franklin edition poems), 114, 132, 187, 238, 243, 326, 333, 334, 336, 381, 383, 479, 519, 554, 591, 595, 638, 708, 901, 1049, 1096, 1263, 1295, 1379, 1448, 1518, 1627, 1631, 1638, 1643, 1654, 1665, 1670, 1681
• Jonathan Sterne, 鈥淎udile Technique and Media鈥� in The Audible Past, pp. 137-154
• Jerusha McCormack, 鈥淒omesticating Delphi: Emily Dickinson and the Electro-magnetic Telegraph鈥�

Week 7. Telephone (1876): From One-on-One to Broadcasting

• Paul Laurence Dunbar, Majors and Minors (1895)
• Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Seven African Romances (musical settings for Dunbar, 1897)
• Wole Soyinka, 鈥淭elephone Conversation鈥� (1962)
• Jessica Kuskey, 鈥淟istening to the Victorian Telephone鈥�
• John Durham Peters, 鈥淭he Telephonic Uncanny and the Problem of Communication鈥�
• Michele Hilmes, 鈥淩adio and the Imagined Community鈥�

Week 8. Phonograph (1877): Reproducing Voices

• Gerard Manley Hopkins, Poems (1918)
• Yopie Prins, 鈥淰oice Inverse鈥�
• James Lastra, 鈥淔idelity versus Intelligibility鈥�

Week 9. Film (1888): Putting it All Together

• Louis Lumiere, Now that Takes the Cake (1903) 鈥� 1 min.
• Thomas Edison, Uncle Tom鈥檚 Cabin (1903) 鈥� 19 min.
• George Veditz, The Preservation of the Sign Language (1913) 鈥� 15 min.
• Lule Warrenton, When Little Lindy Sang (1916) 鈥� 10 min.
• Helen Keller, Deliverance (1919) 鈥� 90 min.
• Oscar Micheaux, Within Our Gates (1920) 鈥� 79 min.
• Walter Murch, 鈥淔oreword鈥� (1994) to Michel Chion鈥檚 Audio-Vision
   

Week 10. Choose Your Own Adventure

• Students will find their own texts and technological objects to present.

Additional Suggested Critical Texts

• Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Its Mechanical Reproducibility (1936)
• Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944)
• Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964)
• Jacques Derrida, Speech and Phenomena (1967)
• Roland Barthes, The Grain of the Voice (1972)
• Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (1982)
• Friedrich Kittler, Gramophone Film Typewriter (1986)
• Hugh Kenner, The Mechanic Muse (1987)
• Jonathan Sterne, The Audible Past (2003)
• Adriana Cavarero, For More than One Voice (2005)
• Mark Goble, Beautiful Circuits (2010)
• The Sound Studies Reader, ed. Jonathan Sterne (2012)
• The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies, eds. Trevor Pinch and Karin Bijsterveld (2012)
• Media, Technology, and Literature in the Nineteenth Century, eds. Linley and Colligan (2016)
• Routledge Companion to Sound Studies, ed. Michael Bull (2018, online)
• The Oxford Handbook of Voice Studies, eds. Nina Sun Eidsheim and Katherine Meizel (2019)
• Sound and Literature, ed. Anna Snaith (2020, online)