Robot wars: 100 years on, it’s time to reboot Karel Čapek’s RUR
I was honored to play Alquist in Artistic Prosperity’s virtual production of RUR over the summer. I’m glad to see Čapek’s play is getting some attention in the Guardian. Not many plays introduce a new word to the language. One that did was Karel Čapek’s RUR: Rossum’s Universal Robots that had its premiere in Prague…
“The face of the last man on Earth.” #alquist #rur #robots #capek #virtual #theater Getting ready to record the epilogue.
Dennis Jerz, R.U.R (Rossum’s Universal Robots), Karel Capek’s “Fantastic Melodrama” – YouTube
“In which the origin of the word “robot” is traced, precursors and context are briefly examined, and the Human soul is displayed for your consideration.” Karel Chapek’s 1920 play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) coined the word ‘robot,” which in the play was applied to an artificial worker, a living being manufactured with a chemical substitute…
The Rule of Capek’s Robots: A public lecture, in which the word “robot” is traced, precursors & context are examined, and the human soul is displayed for your consideration.
Karel Capek Slighted
The layout of this display at the Carnegie Science Center almost makes it look like the Maria duplicate in Metropolis came before Karel Capek’s play RUR (which was written in 1920, first performed in 1921).
Why Computers Will Never Write Good Novels
If it were possible to build a digital novelist or poetry analyst, then computers would be far more powerful than they are now. They would in fact be the most powerful beings in the history of Earth. Their power would be the power of literature, which although it seems now, in today’s glittering silicon age,…
Rebooting “Rossum’s Universal Robots” for the 21st century
“It is over three hours long, and it is like a cross between Noel Coward and The Terminator” – Ivor Benjamin describing the original version of “R.U.R.”Last Wednesday I went to see an adaption of Karel Čapek’s play “Rossum’s Universal Robots”, presented at the British Library. | There was one question from the audience that…
How Humans Respond to Robots
The play that coined the word “robot,” Karel Capek’s R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), included violent robots, compassionate robots, and herd robots (who are content to be workers until incited by the violent robot leaders). This article explores a wide range of human responses to robots. Our expectations of robots and our response to their designs…
Narrative, Creativity, and Evolution
My students are finishing up Hayles, My Mother was a Computer. Some years go, I remember seeing a video of a little girl in a martial arts uniform, barking out “Know what you want! Make a plan! Add a role model! Review your progress!” over and over again, while kicking, chopping and spinning. Her philosophy…
RUR (Rossum’s Universal Robots)
Jerz > Theater RUR [ Intro & Summary | Image Archive | Review ] R.U.R. was written in 1920, premiered in Prague early in 1921, was performed in New York in 1922, and published in English translation in 1923. The following year, G. B. Shaw and G. K. Chesterton were among those in London participating in a…
Theater Resources
Jerz > About > Dennis G. Jerz [ Professional Biography | Writing Handouts | Theater Resources ] York Corpus Christi Play With the combined support of the Church and the merchants who “sponsored” individual plays, the annual performance was a well-established tradition in the English city of York by the end of the 14th century and continued through the late 16th century. (RUR) Rossum’s Universal Robots…
Curriculum Vitae
Jerz > About > Dennis G. Jerz [ Professional Biography | Writing Handouts ] Dennis G. Jerz Associate Professor of English Seton Hill University (2003-present) Contact: jerz.setonhill.edu Previous Positions Assistant Professor of English: Technical Writing University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire (1998-2003) Instructor: Engineering Writing Centre Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering University of Toronto (1996-1998) Education Ph.D., English, University of Toronto (2001) “Soul and Society in a Technological Age:…
RUR Cats
RUR Cats (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) My first (and probably only) contribution to the LOLCats meme. In the 1920s, the Czech play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) introduced the world to a word that quickly displaced older terms such as “automaton.” As author Karel Capek was working out the plot, he fretted that calling them “labori” would be…
Life, Reinvented
If the notion of hacking DNA sounds like genetic engineering, think again. Genetic engineering generally involves moving a preexisting gene from one organism to another, an activity Endy calls DNA bashing. For all its impressive and profitable results, DNA bashing is hardly creative. Proper engineering, by contrast, means designing what you want to make, analyzing…
Calling All Readers! Contest!
If you could assign a reading list to the world, what books would you want people to read, and most importantly, why? —Moira Richardson —Calling All Readers! Contest! (Literary Tease) I’m still recovering from whatever it is that has struck me down this week… but Moira’s blog entry got me thinking. Even though Moira’s original post…
R.U.R. Opera
With the media opera R.U.R., we want to appreciate the Czech author Karel Capek (Czechia’s Goethe) and his importance for the European cultural expression. It is he who in R.U.R. used for the first time the expression robot, derivated of the Russian word “robota” = work. R.U.R. is a classic of science fiction literature and…
Le règne des robots
Écrite en 1920 et jouée pour la première fois à Prague l’année suivante, cette pièce de théâtre, intitulée Rossum’s Universal Robots (R.U.R.), introduit le terme robot, qui remplacera dorénavant celui d’automate. La pièce de Capek fut acclamée dans le monde entier. — Dennis G. Jerz (via an anonymous translator) —Le règne des robots (L’Encyclopédie de L’Agora)…
Robot Nation
“The self-service checkout lines that are springing up everywhere are the first sign of the trend. | The problem, of course, is that all of these robots will eliminate a huge portion of the jobs currently held by human beings. For example, there are 3.5 million jobs in the fast food industry alone. Many of…
Robots that Suck
“When humans use a personal computer, we enter into the computer’s world. If it can’t do something, or if it crashes, too bad; we have to deal. But a robot enters into our world. If floors are uneven, if legs get in the way, if lighting conditions change, the robot has to deal.” George Musser‘s…