A Will for the Machine

“In the sea of AI slop, A Will for the Machine is our life raft. Rejecting the hype and generalities that normally encrust discussions of automation, Sanders offers us historical depth and cultural specificity. He nimbly navigates across disciplines, forms, and decades to delineate the ways in which literature and the arts mediate local understandings of technology. Erudite, perceptive, and lively, this book shows what is possible when writing on machines.” * Rebecca Roach, University of Birmingham * “Sanders sets out to consider the history of automation in South African society by reading a series of writers’ and art-makers’ works for their engagement with automation per se and its attendant social consequences. Focusing on one national context allows Sanders to point toward larger payoffs for studies of automation and culture more broadly. This is a characteristically ambitious project, executed with sophistication, that will appeal broadly to scholars of race, gender, performance, and visual arts across the Global South.” * Andrew van der Vlies, Adelaide University *