Francis Clousarr is a character in Isaac Asimov's Robot series.
About Clousarr[]
Francis Clousarr is a yeast farmer at New York Yeast and a member of the medievalist underground movement. A zymologist by trade, Clousarr works in the yeast farms of New York City, a role he describes with fierce pride, distinguishing it from mere chemistry. He is a known medievalist, an ideology advocating for a return to Earth's past ways of life and a rejection of Spacer influence and robotic automation.
Clousarr's prior arrest for inciting a riot establishes his history of agitation. He is identified by R. Daneel Olivaw as part of the group that followed him and Elijah Baley, and he is present at both the shoe store incident in the Bronx and the subsequent near-riot in Williamsburg.
Detective Baley arrests Clousarr at his workplace. During the interrogation, Clousarr displays intense anti-robot sentiment, immediately identifying R. Daneel as a machine and reacting with violent disgust, striking him to "prove" his robotic nature. His ideological fervor is laid bare in his arguments with Baley; he vehemently rejects robots, colonization of other worlds, and any cooperation with Spacers, insisting that humanity must return to a life on Earth's open land.
Although initially a suspect due to his militant medievalism, Clousarr is not the murderer of Dr. Sarton. His primary role is to personify the widespread social unrest and fear of robotic replacement plaguing Earth's society. His arrest and interrogation provide Baley with a crucial insight: that the romantic, pioneering spirit of the medievalists could potentially be redirected from a destructive past to a constructive future, toward the goal of space colonization.
Appearances[]