Macquarie University

Doll to Cyborg - ENGL371

Throughout the history of children's literature and, more recently, children's film, toys and other inanimate or not human objects and beings have been depicted as taking on a life of their own – a life which sometimes reflects, interrogates, or carnivalises human experience of the world. This unit examines the various uses made in literature and film of manufactured and surrogate human and non-human characters, ranging from dolls and stuffed toys to robots, cyborgs, and vampires. Such narratives are often intensely introspective in their themes, concerned for example with questions related to the nature of being in the world and in relation to others, subjectivity and selfhood, the possibility of agency, what it means to be alive, and, perhaps most centrally, what it means to be human, or conversely not human. Other narratives of this kind are also often apt to be concerned with broader social issues related to gender, sexuality, class, war, and technology, as well as fundamental questions relating to human power and responsibility.

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