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Wide-ranging, lively, and thoroughly researched, Julie Wosk's book expertly guides us through the cultural meanings of artificial females in myth, literature, movies, television, art, and photography, among other fields. --Susan Ostrov Weisser author of The Glass Slipper (09/08/2014)

From Ovid's Metamorphoses to The Stepford Wives, from Enlightenment automata to 21st century robotics, Julie Wosk takes us on an amazing tour of ideas about technology, about human perfection and about gender. --Ruth Schwartz Cowan More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth t (03/09/2015)

"""An engaging historical account of female automata....Wosk’s innovative and readable approach to gender and technology issues in history might make her book a provocative supplementary text for courses that address gender and sexuality in a technological and scientific context."" * IEEE Technology and Society Magazine * ""This is the 'cyborg manifesto' for technology, gender, and art in the twenty-first century. The search for the 'perfect woman' in film, art, photography, and technology collides with the reality of the complex and imperfect that is the essential human experience."" -- Arthur Kroker * author of Exits to the Posthuman Future * ""Wosk presents a riveting portrait of simulated women, female robots, and robot technology in media and art from ancient generations to modern-day creations. The author provides insight about generational interpretation of the 'perfect woman' and the depiction of simulated women to reconcile societal fears of changing gender roles and emerging technologies."" * Library Journal * ""The clarity and the engaging style of Wosk's descriptions—not to mention the images included in the book—make of My Fair Ladies a veritable trove of resources for teachers and students of gender, culture, and the media, particularly in introductory level courses. Besides making explicit the intimate connection between patriarchal ideals of femininity and Western ideas about technology, Wosk's carefully selected examples track how adaptations of the Pygmalion myth evolved alongside social and technological changes ... Wosk's singular perspective as an art historian, and importantly, as an artist, stands out for its freshness and originality."" * Feminist Media Studies * ""Wosk's elucidation of the play of paradox in discussions of real and artificial women is at its best when it forces readers to reconsider their own assumptions about the value of authenticity and the function of artifice."" * Women's Review of Books * ""The central success of this study... has to do with the truly remarkable and diverse range of material to which Wosk’s interpretation is brought. Indeed, the range is so broad as to render any review paltry in its attempt at coverage. In terms of both material culture and the arts, My Fair Ladies shows an impressive grasp of the history of the “artificial woman...” The scope of Wosk’s knowledge of films, mannequins, and other cultural objects and texts is impressive, as is the discussion of the technical side of these various figures"" -- Jason Haslam, Professor at Dalhousie University * American Literary History * ""Why are automatons so attractive? And just what is this 'perfect woman' anyway? Rounding up a veritable sorority of artificial Eves, Julie Wosk delves into the issues in her latest book My Fair Ladies, casting an analytical eye over female depictions, both physical and fictitious, to explore the history and the future of Woman 2.0.""  Read the full article ""Living dolls: sci-fi’s fascination with artificial women"" at: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/13/living-dolls-artificial-women-robots -- Nicola Davis * The Guardian * ""From Ovid's Metamorphoses to The Stepford Wives, from Enlightenment automata to 21st century robotics, Julie Wosk takes us on an amazing  tour of ideas about technology, about human perfection and about gender."" ""This is the 'cyborg manifesto' for technology, gender, and art in the twenty-first century. The search for the 'perfect woman' in film, art, photography, and technology collides with the reality of the complex and imperfect that is the essential human experience."" -- Arthur Kroker * author of Exits to the Posthuman Future * ""Wide-ranging, lively, and thoroughly researched, Julie Wosk’s book expertly guides us through the cultural meanings of artificial females in myth, literature, movies, television, art, and photography, among other fields."" ""An engaging historical account of female automata....Wosk’s innovative and readable approach to gender and technology issues in history might make her book a provocative supplementary text for courses that address gender and sexuality in a technological and scientific context."" * IEEE Technology and Society Magazine * ""Wosk presents a riveting portrait of simulated women, female robots, and robot technology in media and art from ancient generations to modern-day creations. The author provides insight about generational interpretation of the 'perfect woman' and the depiction of simulated women to reconcile societal fears of changing gender roles and emerging technologies."" * Library Journal * ""The clarity and the engaging style of Wosk's descriptions—not to mention the images included in the book—make of My Fair Ladies a veritable trove of resources for teachers and students of gender, culture, and the media, particularly in introductory level courses. Besides making explicit the intimate connection between patriarchal ideals of femininity and Western ideas about technology, Wosk's carefully selected examples track how adaptations of the Pygmalion myth evolved alongside social and technological changes ... Wosk's singular perspective as an art historian, and importantly, as an artist, stands out for its freshness and originality."" * Feminist Media Studies * ""Wosk's elucidation of the play of paradox in discussions of real and artificial women is at its best when it forces readers to reconsider their own assumptions about the value of authenticity and the function of artifice."" * Women's Review of Books * ""The central success of this study... has to do with the truly remarkable and diverse range of material to which Wosk’s interpretation is brought. Indeed, the range is so broad as to render any review paltry in its attempt at coverage. In terms of both material culture and the arts, My Fair Ladies shows an impressive grasp of the history of the “artificial woman...” The scope of Wosk’s knowledge of films, mannequins, and other cultural objects and texts is impressive, as is the discussion of the technical side of these various figures"" -- Jason Haslam, Professor at Dalhousie University * American Literary History * ""Why are automatons so attractive? And just what is this 'perfect woman' anyway? Rounding up a veritable sorority of artificial Eves, Julie Wosk delves into the issues in her latest book My Fair Ladies, casting an analytical eye over female depictions, both physical and fictitious, to explore the history and the future of Woman 2.0.""  Read the full article ""Living dolls: sci-fi’s fascination with artificial women"" at: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/13/living-dolls-artificial-women-robots -- Nicola Davis * The Guardian *"

Author Information

JULIE WOSK is a professor of art history, English, and studio painting at the State University of New York, Maritime College in New York City. She is the author of Women and the Machine: Representations From the Spinning Wheel to the Electronic Age and Breaking Frame: Technology and the Visual Arts in the Nineteenth Century.   

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