What Are Medieval Robots? An Illustrated Lecture with Elly Truitt

Date: NEW DATE: Thursday, June 16th
Time: 7pm
Admission: $5
Location: Morbid Anatomy Museum, 424 Third Avenue, 11215 Brooklyn
***Copies of Elly Truitt’s book will be on sale at this event.

Tickets Here: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2548531

*** Please note: Due to unforeseen circumstances this event has been moved to Thursday, June 16th at 7pm.***

Centuries before Asimovs Three Laws of Robotics, before Fritz Langs Metropolis or Çapeks Rossums Universal Robots, before Vaucansons digesting duck, people imagined, designed, built, and pondered the possibilities and pitfalls of creating artificial people, animals, and other natural objects. Medieval robots are the hidden past of our robotic present, and they were ubiquitous in medieval culture. They appear throughout the Middle Ages and were used to embody complex ideas about the natural world and the heavens, including belief in demons and knowledge of mechanical engineering.

And the bio: E.R. Truitt is Associate Professor at Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania, and author of Medieval Robots: Mechanism, Magic, Nature, and Art (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), as well as numerous scholarly articles on medieval astronomy, pharmacobotany, courtly science, and time-keeping technologies. Her writing has also appeared in Aeon and History Today. She is currently working on several projects related to medieval technology.

Tickets are non-refundable unless the event is canceled.