In God and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology, Adrienne Mayor opens up ancient history to new interpretations by adopting a rather capacious definition of technology, one that many scholars of the ancient world—according to Mayor—may reject out of hand. Focusing on biotechne, or artificial life, Mayor accepts any figure from the texts and artifacts of the ancient world which was “made, not born” as a technological creation. Mayor argues that ancient cultural constructions of technology were less about the inner workings of a black box (e.g., a giant metal robot) than about the imagining of such things existing in the first place. In nine chapters, Mayor recasts various myths and figures of the ancient Greek world in this new light. Gods and Robots serves as an important step in revealing how the idea of technology has functioned in ways both mythic and material from the beginning of recorded history.
Articles by Michael Buozis
Michael Buozis is a visiting lecturer at Muhlenberg College and a doctoral candidate at Klein College of Media and Communication at Temple University. His research, which has been published in Journalism, Journalism Studies, American Journalism, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, and Convergence, examines journalism, digital culture, and technology from a critical cultural studies perspective.