Research Catalog

Robo sapiens japanicus robots, gender, family, and the Japanese nation

Title: Robo sapiens japanicus [electronic resource] : robots, gender, family, and the Japanese nation / Jennifer Robertson.
Author: Robertson, Jennifer, 1953-
Publication: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2018]

Available Online

Details

Description

1 online resource (xiii, 260 pages)

Summary

"Japan is arguably the first postindustrial society to embrace the prospect of human-robot coexistence. Over the past decade, Japanese humanoid robots designed for use in homes, hospitals, offices, and schools have become celebrated in the mass media and social media throughout the world. In Robo sapiens japanicus, Jennifer Robertson casts a critical eye on press releases and public relations videos that misrepresent actual robots as being as versatile and agile as their science fiction counterparts. An ethnography and sociocultural history of governmental and academic discourses of human-robot relations in Japan, this book explores how actual robots--humanoids, androids, animaloids--are "imagineered" in ways that reinforce the conventional sex/gender system and political-economic status quo. In addition, Robertson interrogates the notion of human exceptionalism as she considers whether "civil rights" should be granted to robots. Similarly, she juxtaposes how robots and robotic exoskeletons reinforce a conception of the "normal" body with a deconstruction of the much-invoked Theory of the Uncanny Valley"--Provided by publisher.

Uniform Title

Robo sapiens japanicus (Online)

Alternative Title

Robo sapiens japanicus (Online)

Subject

Human-robot interaction > Japan

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Access (note)

Access restricted to authorized users.

Contents

Robot visions -- Innovation as renovation -- Families of future past -- Embodiment and gender -- Robot rights vs. human rights -- Cyborg-ableism beyond the uncanny (valley) -- Robot reality check.

LCCN