W. J. T. Mitchell, Mark B. N. Hansen (eds.): Critical Terms for Media Studies (2010)
Filed under book | Tags: · aesthetics, autopoiesis, body, communication, cybernetics, image, information theory, language, law, mass media, media, media studies, media theory, memory, networks, posthuman, software, technology, writing
“Part of a larger conversation that engages culture, technology, and politics, this collection of essays explores critical language for dealing with the qualities and modes of contemporary media. The essays, commissioned expressly for this volume, are organized into three interrelated groups: “Aesthetics” engages with terms that describe sensory experiences and judgments, “Technology” offers entry into a broad array of technological concepts, and “Society” opens up language describing the systems that allow a medium to function.”
Contributors: Johanna Drucker (Art), Bernadette Wegenstein (Body), Bill Brown (Materiality), Bernard Stiegler (Memory), Caroline Jones (Senses), Eugene Thacker (Biomedia), Bruce Clarke (Communication, Information), N. Katherine Hayles (Cybernetics), Geoffrey Winthrop-Young (Hardware / Software / Wetware), John Johnston (Technology), David Graeber (Exchange), Cary Wolfe (Language), Peter Goodrich (Law), John Durham Peters (Mass Media), Alexander R. Galloway (Networks), David Wellbery (Systems), Lydia H. Liu (Writing), and W. J. T. Mitchell and Mark B. N. Hansen (Image, Time and Space, New Media).
Publisher University of Chicago Press, 2010
ISBN 0226532666, 9780226532660
376 pages
Hillel Schwartz: The Culture of the Copy: Striking Likenesses, Unreasonable Facsimiles, 2nd ed. (1996/2013)
Filed under book | Tags: · animal, appropriation, art, children, computing, copy, death, fashion, film, gender, genetics, history, imitation, japan, language, machine, memory, music, photography, piracy, property, reenactment, reproduction, sculpture, simulation, slavery, statistics, surgery, technology, theatre, time, war
The Culture of the Copy is an unprecedented attempt to make sense of the Western fascination with replicas, duplicates, and twins. In a work that is breathtaking in its synthetic and critical achievements, Hillel Schwartz charts the repercussions of our entanglement with copies of all kinds, whose presence alternately sustains and overwhelms us. Through intriguing, and at times humorous, historical analysis and case studies in contemporary culture, Schwartz investigates a stunning array of simulacra—counterfeits, decoys, mannequins, and portraits; ditto marks, genetic cloning, war games, and camouflage; instant replays, digital imaging, parrots, and photocopies; wax museums, apes, and art forgeries, not to mention the very notion of the Real McCoy. Working through a range of theories on biological, mechanical, and electronic reproduction, Schwartz questions the modern esteem for authenticity and uniqueness. The Culture of the Copy shows how the ethical dilemmas central to so many fields of endeavor have become inseparable from our pursuit of copies—of the natural world, of our own creations, indeed of our very selves.
This updated edition takes notice of recent shifts in thought with regard to such issues as biological cloning, conjoined twins, copyright, digital reproduction, and multiple personality disorder. At once abbreviated and refined, it will be of interest to anyone concerned with proglems of authenticity, identity, and originality.
First published in 1996
Publisher Zone Books, New York, 2013
ISBN 1935408453, 9781935408451
480 pages
Review (Terence Hawkes, London Review of Books, 1997)
Review (Francis Kane, The New York Times, 1997)
Review (Todd Gitlin, Los Angeles Times, 1997)
Download (removed on 2014-3-20 upon request of the publisher)
Comment (1)Geoffrey Winthrop-Young: Kittler and the Media (2011)
Filed under book | Tags: · alphabet, biography, computing, cultural techniques, discourse, language, media, media technology, media theory, philosophy, technology
“With books such as Discourse Networks and Gramophone, Film, Typewriter and the collection Literature, Media, Information Systems, Friedrich Kittler has established himself as one of the world’s most influential media theorists. He is also one of the most controversial and misunderstood.
Kittler and the Media offers students of media theory an introduction to Kittler’s basic ideas. Following an introduction that situates Kittler’s work against the tumultuous background of German 20th-century history (from the Second World War and the cultural upheaval of the late 1960s to reunification), the book provides succinct summaries of Kittler’s early discourse-analytical work inspired by French post-structuralism, his media-related theorising and his most recent writings on cultural techniques and the notation systems of Ancient Greece.
This clear and engaging overview of a fascinating theorist will be welcomed by students and scholars alike of media, communication and cultural studies.”
Publisher Polity, 2011
Theory and Media series
ISBN 0745644066, 9780745644066
165 pages
PDF (updated on 2019-12-8)
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