|
Showing 1 - 5 of
5 matches in All Departments
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the hegemony of the
printed word was shattered by the arrival of new media technologies
that offered novel ways of communicating and storing data.
Previously, writing had operated by way of symbolic mediation--all
data had to pass through the needle's eye of the written
signifier--but phonography, photography, and cinematography stored
physical effects of the real in the shape of sound waves and light.
The entire question of referentiality had to be recast in light of
these new media technologies; in addition, the use of the
typewriter changed the perception of writing from that of a unique
expression of a literate individual to that of a sequence of naked
material signifiers.
Part technological history of the emergent new media in the late
nineteenth century, part theoretical discussion of the responses to
these media--including texts by Rilke, Kafka, and Heidegger, as
well as elaborations by Edison, Bell, Turing, and other
innovators--"Gramophone, Film, Typewriter" analyzes this momentous
shift using insights from the work of Foucault, Lacan, and McLuhan.
Fusing discourse analysis, structuralist psychoanalysis, and media
theory, the author adds a vital historical dimension to the current
debates over the relationship between electronic literacy and
poststructuralism, and the extent to which we are constituted by
our technologies. The book ties the establishment of new discursive
practices to the introduction of new media technologies, and it
shows how both determine the ways in which psychoanalysis conceives
of the psychic apparatus in terms of information machines.
"Gramophone, Film, Typewriter" is, among other things, a
continuation as well as a detailed elaboration of the second part
of the author's "Discourse Networks, 1800/1900" (Stanford, 1990).
As such, it bridges the gap between Kittler's discourse analysis of
the 1980's and his increasingly computer-oriented work of the
1990's.
Friedrich Kittler (1943-2011) combined the study of literature,
cinema, technology, and philosophy in a manner sufficiently novel
to be recognized as a new field of academic endeavor in his native
Germany. "Media studies," as Kittler conceived it, meant reflecting
on how books operate as films, poetry as computer science, and
music as military equipment. This volume collects writings from all
stages of the author's prolific career. Exemplary essays illustrate
how matters of form and inscription make heterogeneous source
material (e.g., literary classics and computer design)
interchangeable on the level of function--with far-reaching
consequences for our understanding of the humanities and the "hard
sciences." Rich in counterintuitive propositions, sly humor, and
vast erudition, Kittler's work both challenges the assumptions of
positivistic cultural history and exposes the over-abstraction and
language games of philosophers such as Heidegger and Derrida. The
twenty-three pieces gathered here document the intellectual
itinerary of one of the most original thinkers in recent
times--sometimes baffling, often controversial, and always
stimulating.
Friedrich Kittler (1943-2011) combined the study of literature,
cinema, technology, and philosophy in a manner sufficiently novel
to be recognized as a new field of academic endeavor in his native
Germany. "Media studies," as Kittler conceived it, meant reflecting
on how books operate as films, poetry as computer science, and
music as military equipment. This volume collects writings from all
stages of the author's prolific career. Exemplary essays illustrate
how matters of form and inscription make heterogeneous source
material (e.g., literary classics and computer design)
interchangeable on the level of function--with far-reaching
consequences for our understanding of the humanities and the "hard
sciences." Rich in counterintuitive propositions, sly humor, and
vast erudition, Kittler's work both challenges the assumptions of
positivistic cultural history and exposes the over-abstraction and
language games of philosophers such as Heidegger and Derrida. The
twenty-three pieces gathered here document the intellectual
itinerary of one of the most original thinkers in recent
times--sometimes baffling, often controversial, and always
stimulating.
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the hegemony of the
printed word was shattered by the arrival of new media technologies
that offered novel ways of communicating and storing data.
Previously, writing had operated by way of symbolic mediation--all
data had to pass through the needle's eye of the written
signifier--but phonography, photography, and cinematography stored
physical effects of the real in the shape of sound waves and light.
The entire question of referentiality had to be recast in light of
these new media technologies; in addition, the use of the
typewriter changed the perception of writing from that of a unique
expression of a literate individual to that of a sequence of naked
material signifiers.
Part technological history of the emergent new media in the late
nineteenth century, part theoretical discussion of the responses to
these media--including texts by Rilke, Kafka, and Heidegger, as
well as elaborations by Edison, Bell, Turing, and other
innovators--"Gramophone, Film, Typewriter" analyzes this momentous
shift using insights from the work of Foucault, Lacan, and McLuhan.
Fusing discourse analysis, structuralist psychoanalysis, and media
theory, the author adds a vital historical dimension to the current
debates over the relationship between electronic literacy and
poststructuralism, and the extent to which we are constituted by
our technologies. The book ties the establishment of new discursive
practices to the introduction of new media technologies, and it
shows how both determine the ways in which psychoanalysis conceives
of the psychic apparatus in terms of information machines.
"Gramophone, Film, Typewriter" is, among other things, a
continuation as well as a detailed elaboration of the second part
of the author's "Discourse Networks, 1800/1900" (Stanford, 1990).
As such, it bridges the gap between Kittler's discourse analysis of
the 1980's and his increasingly computer-oriented work of the
1990's.
Die Beitrage dieses Bandes lenken den Blick auf einen blinden Fleck
universitarer Selbsterkenntnis: auf die von aussen diktierten
Bedingungen, denen zumal die Geisteswissenschaften stets
unterliegen, ohne sich daruber Rechenschaft abzulegen. Konigliche
Erlasse, institutionelle Praktiken, wechselnde technische Standards
regulieren die Zugange zu den Gegenstanden und Erkenntnissen von
Philosophen, Psychologen, Philologen, Sprachen, Paradigmen,
Adressatenund Ubertragungsgeschwindigkeiten des Wissens liegen
ausserhalb professoraler Souveranitaten. Die in ganz
unterschiedliche historische Perspektiven einfuhrenden Beitrage
bieten daher keine akademischen Selbstreflexionen, sondern
Diskursanalysen universitarer Geltungsanspruche."
|
|