Protesting the Human: Cyborgs, Gender, & the Emotional Culture of Trauma in Westworld & Black Mirror

• In Event: Machines and Monsters

Abstract

Though in the media, recent evaluations of A.I. frame its success in terms of ‘how human’ robots can become, perhaps nowhere is this better questioned than in the recent TV series Westworld and Black Mirror, which are based on cyborg identities that protest and bring into question the success of human emotional communities. Focusing on the robots’ protest against the sexualized, gendered violence against “female” cyborg bodies in both of these series, this paper explores how cyborgs’ protests reveal the human as constructed through the violation of community values, particularly the violation of emotional norms.

Presenter

• Megan Moore, University of Missouri