amp;lt;pamp;gt;Today we commonly describe ourselves as machines that let off steam or feel under pressure. amp;lt;iamp;gt;The Lives of Machinesamp;lt;/iamp;gt; investigates how Victorian technoculture came to shape this language of human emotion so pervasively and irrevocably and argues that nothing is more intensely human and affecting than the nonhuman. Tamara Ketabgian explores the emergence of a modern and more mechanical view of human nature in Victorian literature and culture. amp;lt;/pamp;gt;amp;lt;pamp;gt;Treating British literature from the 1830s to the 1870s this study examines forms of feeling and community that combine the vital and the mechanical the human and the nonhuman in surprisingly hybrid and productive alliances. Challenging accounts of industrial alienation that still persist the author defines mechanical character and feeling not as erasures or negations of self but as robust and nuanced entities in their own right. amp;lt;iamp;gt;The Lives of Machinesamp;lt;/iamp;gt; thus offers an alternate cultural history that traces sympathies between humans animals and machines in novels and nonfiction about factory work as well as in other unexpected literary sites and genres whether domestic scientific musical or philosophical. Ketabgian historicizes a model of affect and community that continues to inform recent theories of technology psychology and the posthuman. amp;lt;/pamp;gt;amp;lt;pamp;gt;amp;lt;iamp;gt;The Lives of Machinesamp;lt;/iamp;gt; will be of interest to students of British literature and history history of science and of technology novel studies psychoanalysis and postmodern cultural studies.amp;lt;/pamp;gt; Read more