Abstract
ABSTRACTWithin the western philosophical tradition, the human voice has long been intimately connected with the idea of presence. By dissociating the voice from its speaker’s body, Thomas Edison’s phonograph posed a philosophical challenge to this view at a time of rising secularism in France. This essay argues that in Villiers de l’Isle-Adam’s L’Ève future and Alfred Jarry’s Le Surmâle, phonographs allow the authors to examine the relationship between voice and presence in ways that operate within a historical context and speak to contemporary debates. Where Villiers sets subjectivism against a lingering faith in presence, Jarry dissolves traditional notions of the human subject. This essay suggests that the questions of consciousness, technology, religion, the body, and love which coalesce around the phonograph and mechanical ‘love machines’ in these two novels continue to resonate today: in debates surrounding the ethics of artificial intelligence, critical discussions within the humanities, and in mainstream media.
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