{"product_id":"seeming-human-artificial-intelligence-and-victorian-realist-character-hardcover","title":"Seeming Human: Artificial Intelligence and Victorian Realist Character - Hardcover","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eMegan Ward\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eOffers a new theory of realist character through character's unexpected afterlife: the intelligent machine.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn\u003ci\u003e Seeming Human, \u003c\/i\u003eMegan Ward contends that mid-twentieth-century versions of artificial intelligence (AI) offer a theory of verisimilitude omitted by traditional histories of character, which often focus on the development of interiority and the shift from \"flat\" to \"round\" characters in the Victorian era. Instead, by reading character through AI, Megan Ward's \u003ci\u003eSeeming Human\u003c\/i\u003e argues that routinization, predictability, automation, and even flatness are all features of realist characters. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eEarly artificial intelligence movements such as cybernetics, information theory, and the Turing test define ways of seeming--rather than being--human. Using these theories of verisimilitude to read Victorian novelists such as Elizabeth Gaskell, Margaret Oliphant, Anthony Trollope, Thomas Hardy, and Henry James, \u003ci\u003eSeeming Human\u003c\/i\u003e argues that mechanicity has been perceived as anti-realist because it is the element that we least want to identify as human. Because AI produces human-like intelligence, it makes clear that we must actually turn to machines in order to understand what makes realist characters seem so human.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eMegan Ward is Associate Professor in the School of Writing, Literature, and Film at Oregon State University, where she teaches courses on British literature from 1800 to the present, the history of the novel, and archival theory. Her work on technology and realism has appeared or is forthcoming in edited collections such as \u003ci\u003eAI Narratives\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Routledge Guide to Politics and Literature\u003c\/i\u003e as well as journals such as \u003ci\u003eNew Literary History \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e Public Humanities\u003c\/i\u003e. She is also Co-Editor of the Nineteenth-Century Data Collective and has published writing on the Victorian antecedents of contemporary culture for general audiences in \u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eWired\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e, and the \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003ci\u003eSeeming Human \u003c\/i\u003eis her first book.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 216\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.56 x 9 x 6 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e August 23, 2018\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67596297109606,"sku":"9780814213759","price":128.59,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0599\/7255\/0758\/files\/YzHgBYbMcK9780814213759.webp?v=1790801428","url":"https:\/\/infinitylightwa.com\/products\/seeming-human-artificial-intelligence-and-victorian-realist-character-hardcover","provider":"Infinity Light","version":"1.0","type":"link"}