While automatism is closely associated with the French surrealists and their method for composing texts and images via psychic automatism, the term likewise refers to a centuries-old concept connoting a spectrum of self-directed, mechanical, or uncontrollable processes across historical, social, and cultural contexts. This interdisciplinary seminar focuses on iterations of the deeply-rooted concept of automatism, including mechanized automatons; philosophical discourses of materialism and metaphysics; the legal definition of individuals; various psychological and physical disorders; as well as spontaneous social and political disruptions.