# Mechanocene

Author: Yongwook Lee (이용욱), Jeonju University

Canonical English page: https://knowledge.leehumanities.com/en/concepts/mechanocene

Semantic ID: https://knowledge.leehumanities.com/concepts/mechanocene#term

Definition version: 1.0

## Canonical definition

The Mechanocene is not an age in which machines replace humans, but a phase of transition in which the “reverse ecology” of human-made technological environments acquiring relative operational autonomy and reorganizing subsequent human possibilities becomes manifest on a civilizational scale.

## Editorial reading note

Yongwook Lee’s account of the Mechanocene concerns how human-made technological environments condition subsequent human perception, judgment, and action. Artificial Nature describes the structure of these environments; the Mechanocene concerns their civilizational feedback upon human possibilities. The papers below develop related questions through ecological inequality and humanities education.

## Related papers

Lee Yong Wook. (2025). Artificial Ecocriticism I: Ecological Inequality in the Mechanocene The Korean Language and Literature, 213, 285–334. https://doi.org/10.31889/kll.2025.12.213.285

[Publication record](https://knowledge.leehumanities.com/en/sources/artificial-ecocriticism-1)

Lee, Yong-wook. (2025). The Role and Practical Strategies of Humanities Education in the Age of the Machinocene — Focusing on the Emotional Competency Development of Adolescents — 현대문학이론연구, 99, 147–174. https://doi.org/10.22273/SMLT.99.6

[Publication record](https://knowledge.leehumanities.com/en/sources/humanities-education-mechanocene)

[Author’s terminology explanation](https://dhhumanist.org/volume/40/108/)

Canonical definition: CC BY 4.0.