Conversion Machines: Apparatus, Artifice, Body

The book explores the mechanisms of change and conversions that harrowed and transformed early modern people and their worlds, bringing forward the history of made things and the history of practices as a new way of understanding the social and political dimensions of conversion. It focuses on the 16th and 17th centuries with case studies of conversion machines in England, New Spain, Italy, the Low Countries, France, and islands in the Mediterranean. The chapters focus on literary works, works of art and architecture, and thinkers such as Augustine, Descartes, and Leibniz. The book concludes with a pairing of philosophical chapters on what machines cannot do and on human conversion machines.

Format: Hardback
Length: 384 pages
Publication date: 30 June 2023
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

The book explores the mechanisms of change and conversions that harrowed and transformed early modern people and their worlds. It presents the history of made things and the history of practices as a new way of understanding the social and political dimensions of early modern conversion, encompassing primarily religious conversion but also bodily, sexual, and machine-to-human kinds of transformation. By adopting a multidisciplinary approach, the book encompasses history, art and architectural histories, literary studies, and philosophy. It focuses on the 16th and 17th centuries, with case studies of conversion machines operating in England, New Spain, Italy, the Low Countries, France, and islands in the Mediterranean. The book develops accounts of systems and mechanisms for attracting converts and managing, manipulating, and staging conversions. Individual chapters explore literary works such as Hamlet, The Temple by George Herbert, and L'Île des Hermaphrodites; works of art and architecture by Jacopo Ligozzi and Claudio de Arciniega; and thinkers such as Augustine, Descartes, and Leibniz. These chapters delve into spaces, movement, visions, sensory experiences, material, spiritual, and bodily transformations that are highly self-aware and inventive.

The book concludes with a pairing of philosophical chapters on what machines cannot do and on human conversion machines. Conversion machines are paradoxical apparatuses, artfully fashioned preparations, arrangements, and things that demonstrate processes of change. They are both intent on verifying what was invisible, uncertain, and even unknowable, while also acting as sowers of dissimulation. The book does not seek to mechanize conversion, recognizing that in many ways, conversion and the transformation of the convert will remain ineffable. Nonetheless, it maintains that studying the history of made things and the history of practices offers a valuable lens for understanding the complex and multifaceted processes of early modern conversion.

Weight: 778g
Dimension: 162 x 242 x 26 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781399516006