The Armor Network: Medieval Prostheses and Degenerative Posthuman Bodies PDF
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UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title The Armor Network: Medieval Prostheses and Degenerative Posthuman Bodies Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7ms8388w Author Papica, Raymund Publication Date 2016 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE The Armor Network: Medieval Prostheses and Degenerative Posthuman Bodies A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English by Raymund Papica June 2016 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Andrea Denny-Brown, Chairperson Dr. John M. Ganim Dr. James Tobias Copyright by Raymund Papica 2016 The Dissertation of Raymund Papica is approved: __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside Acknowledgements I would like to thank all the members of my dissertation committee at the University of California, Riverside, for their advice and encouragement: Dr. John M. Ganim, Dr. James Tobias, Dr. Deborah Willis, Dr. Jeanette Kohl, and especially the chair of my committee, Dr. Andrea Denny-Brown, for all of her guidance and willingness to see me through this project. iv To my grandmother, Crescencia S. Papica A quest fulfilled v ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION The Armor Network: Medieval Prostheses and Degenerative Posthuman Bodies by Raymund Papica Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in English University of California, Riverside, June 2016 Dr. Andrea Denny-Brown, Chairperson By studying depictions of armor in The Canterbury Tales, Le Morte D’Arthur, and The Faerie Queene, and by seeing how these works help us understand medievalism in contemporary media, this dissertation investigates how armored bodies function as a way to think through the problematics of posthuman transformations. This project repositions the way in which premodern masculine identity was often predicated upon how bodies were constructed with, and connected to, multiple objects, nonhuman figures, and fluctuating interpretations of machinic evolution. Furthermore, this study of armor is concerned with the degeneration of bodies damaged by war and contagion, as well as the instability and inadequacy of the body’s boundaries. Armor can be fragmented, assembled, and remixed with other armorial pieces and materials. Through an interdisciplinary approach, this project performs the task of tracing a longer history concerned with armored bodies, faulty ideologies, and technological anxieties. Studying the fictionalized use of armored bodies across literary history pushes us to question the results of technological augmentation. Each chapter studies the processes in which a body transforms into an armored posthuman. Armor, this project argues, can be thought of as v i part of a posthuman assemblage that collects and develops various narrative strands about prosthetic transformations. vii Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Chaucer’s Knight and Squire: 15 Equine Prostheses, Armorial Augmentations, and Masculine Degenerations Chapter 2: Smiting, Cleansing, and Becoming-Sacred: 74 Embracing Bloody Degeneration in Le Morte D’Arthur Chapter 3: Armored Knights and Armored Automatons: 116 The Legend of Justice and the Triple-Bodied Assemblage Chapter 4: Digital Armor and Becoming-Medieval: 162 Simulated Medievalisms and Learning How to Die Bibliography 209 viii Illustrations List Figure 1: Image from Iron Man 2. Palladium poisoning 173 and Stark’s degenerated body. Figure 2: Image from Iron Man’s Mark I Armor. 174 Figure 3: Image of Destiny’s “Iron Companion Vestments.” 185 Figure 4: Comparison of Destiny’s Iron Companion Mask with 187 A sixteenth century closed burgonet. Figure 5: Comparison of thirteenth century armor with simulated 188 armor from Destiny Figure 6: Image of Destiny’s “Crest of the Alpha Lupi.” 190 Figure 7: Image from Destiny. A comparison of Titan and 193 Hive Armor Figure 8: Images from Edge of Tomorrow’s New Jacket Armor 197 ix
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