R.U.R. and the Vision of Artificial Life

“R.U.R. is fascinating and bizarre… . The most important contribution of the volume is a new translation of the play by Štěpán Šimek … who manages to capture the surreal weirdness of Čapek’s dark comedy of errors while making the text accessible to contemporary audiences… . Čapek’s masterpiece reminds us first that just because we can does not mean we should.”
—Science

“[The essays] are full of surprising insights and together constitute a fascinating experiment in how scientists might cast new light on a literary classic. In the process, they confirm the prescience of the radical questions Čapek raised a hundred years ago… . In our age of ChatGPT … we may return to Čapek for his prescient sense of how market logic underwrites scientific certainty, and vice versa.” — Los Angeles Review of Books

“Makes for fascinating reading.”
—IEEE Spectrum

“A must-read for anyone interested in ALife.”
—Irish Times

“We are still reading [Čapek] today, and as R.U.R and the Vision of Artificial Life shows, finding new significance in everything that emerged from minds such as … Čapek’s.”
—Orwell Society

“The translation of the play, by Štĕpán Šimek, is a revelation… . The book is well worth buying and adding to reading lists on the basis of Šimek’s achievement… . Fans of Čapek, and proponents of the possibilities of literature for investigating histories and philosophies of science, should be grateful to Jitka Čejková and Štĕpán Šimek for introducing his wonderful work to a new generation.”
—British Journal for the History of Science

“Čapek’s far-seeing tragicomic satire blurs the lines between the human and the biomechanical.”
—Arts Fuse

“[A] stimulating volume … Štěpán S. Šimek gives us a bracing new translation.”
—Issues in Science and Technology

“R.U.R. is of course superb, the new translation and the translator’s note by Štěpán Šimek are helpful, and the essays are interesting and worth reading.”
—Technology & Culture

Karel Čapek (1890-1938) was a Czech novelist, short story writer, playwright, and essayist best known for his dystopian works. He was the author of War with the Newts, The Makropulos Affair, The Absolute at Large, The White Disease, and many other notable works.

Jitka Čejkova is Associate Professor in the Chemical Robotics Laboratory at the University of Chemistry and Technology Prague. Her research focuses on how chemical engineers can contribute to artificial life research.

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