A gépszörny megszelídítése: Thomas Mann, Jorge Luis Borges, Franz Kafka és Nemes Nagy Ágnes válaszai a gép fenyegető ígéretére
The Taming of the Machine Monster: Responses of Thomas Mann, Jorge Luis Borges, Franz Kafka, and Ágnes Nemes Nagy to the Threat of the Machine

Summary/Abstract: In this paper, I will first introduce the theoretical authors who have been influential for me in my acquaintance with the humanities or social sciences concerning the machine. I will outline some of the nodes of the vast conceptual web that the machine has brought into being in the 20th century. Later, I will cite some examples from Western and Central European literature of the first half of the 20th century: Thomas Mann, Jorge Luis Borges, Franz Kafka, and Ágnes Nemes Nagy break with the tradition of humanist aversion to the machine, since none of them presents the monstrous, inhuman face of the machine. The literary thematizations of the machine by Kafka, Borges, Mann, and Nemes Nagy seem similar in that they all demystify or dialecticize the machine, exploring the broader contexts that lead to its materialization.

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