V začetku štiridesetih let devetnajstega stoletja je Joseph Faber javnosti predstavil svoj izum ≫Čudoviti govoreči stroj≪, pozneje poznan pod imenom Euphonia, ki je obenem očaral in vznemirjal svoje občinstvo. Medtem, ko je njegova sposobnost posnemanja človeškega govora v različnih jezikih izkazovala izjemen mehanicistični dosežek, pa je njegov strašljivi glas sprožal nemir. Pričujoči prispevek preučuje dinamiko med Faberjem in njegovim izumom ter vleče vzporednice z Victorjem Frankensteinom Mary Shelley in njegovim ≫stvorom≪. V ospredju sta status umetne stvaritve in zaskrbljujoča narava imitacije, (...) ki jo postavljamo ob bok splošni ambivalentnosti do avtomatonov devetnajstega stoletja. Z analizo srečanja med stvarnikom in stvaritvijo je naš namen preučiti kompleksnost njunega razmerja in grozljivost, ki izhaja iz brisanja meja med človekom in strojem, ko nastopi učinek ≫podobnosti v razliki≪. (shrink)

The paper analyses the place of the End in Mary Shelley’s 1826 science fiction novel The Last Man, in which the image of a world devoid of humanity, as portrayed by the last man writing the last book, is drawn before the reader through a conceptual rethinking of notions such as the loss of the world, prophecy of the future, and oblivion of the past, as well as the return of the irretrievable through the siren song.

In the early 1840s, Joseph Faber presented his invention “The Wonderful Talking Machine,” later known as Euphonia, which captivated and unsettled audiences alike. While its ability to imitate human speech in various languages represented a remarkable mechanical feat, its “uncanny” voice elicited unease. The paper examines the dynamic between Faber and his invention, drawing parallels with Mary Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein and his “creature.” We focus on the status of artificial creation and the unsettling nature of imitation, emphasizing the general ambivalence (...) towards automata in the 19th century. By exploring the encounter between creator and creation, we examine the complexity of their relation and the horror that emanates from the blurring of the boundaries between man and machine when an effect of “likeness in difference” takes place. (shrink)

The paper explores the contact between the literary notion of the end of the world as depicted in H.G. Wells’s science fiction novel _The Time Machine_ and the concept of extinction, in the sense developed by the French naturalist Georges Cuvier, who at the turn of the 19 th century formulated a thesis about the structure of the world with a built-in end. The time traveller in Wells’s novel is driven into the distant future by an obsessive desire to know (...) the fate of the world. He encounters it on the shores of an already dead sea, where he is greeted by the image of a dying world, unmoving in the dull red light of a never-setting sun. Cuvier, on the other hand, encounters the end of the world as a reader of traces of history as told by nature through its layering and piling up. Within these layers, Cuvier recognises moments of repetitive interruptions that have left behind not only whole species and genera, but also entire worlds in the great natural history. The key question, then, is the status of the end within the proposed mechanism of return and repetition. (shrink)