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Taking psychoanalysis into cyberspace, Sex, machines and navels develops an innovative theoretical perspective on the relationship between bodies and machines to offer a focused re-examination of notions of desire, metaphor, sexed identity and difference and the process of technological transformation.

<p>Acknowledgements<br>1. Navels<br>Navel-gazing <br>The question of the navel<br>2. Lacan’s navel<br>Psychoanalysis through the navel?<br>The navel of the dream<br>Reading navels <br>The navel’s return<br>3. Jokes and their relation to postmodernism<br>The joke that is not one<br>The navel of the joke <br>Jokes and their relation to the Other<br>Postmodernism’s navel<br>Paternal metaphors? <br>4. History, holes and things<br>History’s navel<br>Natural history and the navel<br>Holes and things<br>Wombs, texts, hystery<br>Repetition, revolution, drive <br>5. Of meat and the matrix<br>Future history and the navel<br>Plugging into the One <br>Other matrix, other meat<br>Navel, image, screen <br>6. Romance of the machine<br>Navels in the machine<br>Going nodal<br>Bibliography<br>Index</p>

Fred Botting is Professor of English Literature and Executive member of London Graduate School, Kingston University

<p>Sex, machines and navels offers a rigorous critical re-reading of fictions of humanity, history, technology and postmodern culture.<br><br>Taking psychoanalysis into cyberspace, the book develops an innovative theoretical perspective on the relationship between bodies and machines to offer a focused re-examination of notions of desire, metaphor, sexed identity and difference and the process of technological transformation.<br><br>The book unravels one figure in a detailed, lucid and extensive revision of Lacanian psychoanalysis in association with postmodern theory, feminism and deconstruction. Problematising the easy conjunction of human bodies and inhuman technology, the navel opens into networks of desire, history, culture and machines. Linked to the unconscious, to jokes and dreams, navels appear on the bodies of replicants and in the technological matrix, a strange excess in a future imagined in terms of corporeal ‘meat’ or posthuman machine. Exploring the significance of this omphalic excess, the book closely postmodern and cyberpunk texts (by Thomas Pynchon, Graham Swift, Julian Barnes, William Gibson, Rudy Rucker) alongside detailed readings of contemporary cultural critics and theorists.<br><br>Presenting an informative and original exploration of cultural fantasies and anxieties, Sex, machines and navels will appeal to teachers, researchers and advanced students in the Humanities and Social Sciences.</p>

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