Ross Chambers talks about the fictions of "artificial life" and what they have to do with contemporary concerns around cloning, genetic modifications and the like, including monsters, automata, vivisected animal and illusions.  His questions include "How do these figures interpellate vs. non-artificial humans?  Why are the men always scary monsters, the women alluring but unpossessable because "heartless?"  He also diagnoses something he calls "pseudophobia," along the axis of the monstrous and the glamorous.

Hosted by: Department of French

In conjunction with:  College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Contemporary French Civilization, Department of Anthropology, Department of English, Foreign Language Building, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, Program in Comparative and World Literature, Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory