Friedrich A. Kittler: Discourse Networks 1800/1900 (1985–) [German, English]

“This is a highly original book about the connections between historical moment, social structure, technology, communication systems, and what is said and thought using these systems–notably literature. Friedrich Kittler focuses on the differences between ‘discourse networks’ in 1800 and in 1900, in the process developing a new analysis of the shift from romanticism to modernism. The artful structure of the book begins with Goethe’s Faust and ends with Valéry’s Faust. In the 1800 section, the author discusses how language was learned, the emergence of the modern university, the associated beginning of the interpretation of contemporary literature, and the canonization of literature. Among the writers and works Kittler analyzes in addition to Goethe’s Faust are Schlegel, Hegel, E.T.A. Hoffman’s The Golden Pot, and Goethe’s Tasso. The 1900 section argues that the new discourse network in which literature is situated in the modern period is characterized by new technological media–film, the photograph, and the typewritten page–and the crisis that these caused for literary production. Along the way, the author discusses the work of Nietzsche, Gertrude Stein, Mallarmé, Bram Stroker, the Surrealists, Rilke, Kafka, and Freud, among others.”

Aufschreibesysteme 1800/1900
First published in 1985
Third, completely revised edition
Publisher Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Munich, 1995
ISBN 3770528816, 9783770528813
524 pages

Discourse Networks, 1800/1900
Translated by Michael Metteer, with Chris Cullens
Foreword by David E. Wellbery
Publisher Stanford University Press, 1990
ISBN 9780804720991
496 pages

Reviews: Franz Futterknecht and David Wellbery (Poetics Today, 1987, EN), Robert C. Holub (German Quarterly, 1987, EN), Thomas Sebastian (MLN, 1990, EN).

Wikipedia (DE)
Publisher (DE)
Publisher (EN)

Aufschreibesysteme 1800/1900 (German, 3rd ed., 1985/1995, removed on 2024-2-6 upon request from Brill)
Discourse Networks, 1800/1900 (English, 1990, updated to the full book on 2014-1-30 via poshumano, updated to single-page OCR’d version on 2014-1-31 via Marcell Mars)

Online version of Index of persons (at Monoskop wiki)

Christopher Alex McLean: Artist-Programmers and Programming Languages for the Arts (2011)

“We consider the artist-programmer, who creates work through its description as source code. The artist-programmer grandstands computer language, giving unique vantage over human-computer interaction in a creative context. We focus on the human in this relationship, noting that humans use an amalgam of language and gesture to express themselves. Accordingly we expose the deep relationship between computer languages and continuous expression, examining how these realms may support one another, and how the artist-programmer may fully engage with both.

Our argument takes us up through layers of representation, starting with symbols, then words, language and notation, to consider the role that these representations may play in human creativity. We form a cross-disciplinary perspective from psychology, computer science, linguistics, human-computer interaction, computational creativity, music technology and the arts.

We develop and demonstrate the potential of this view to inform arts practice, through the practical introduction of software prototypes, artworks, programming languages and improvised performances. In particular, we introduce works which demonstrate the role of perception in symbolic semantics, embed the representation of time in programming language, include visuospatial arrangement in syntax, and embed the activity of programming in the improvisation and experience of art.”

Doctoral thesis
Goldsmiths, University of London, October 2011
Supervisor Geraint Wiggins
Co-supervisor Mark d’Inverno
172 pages

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PDF

Walter Benjamin: The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 1910-1940 (1994)

“Called “the most important critic of his time” by Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin has only become more influential over the years, as his work has assumed a crucial place in current debates over the interactions of art, culture, and meaning. A “natural and extraordinary talent for letter writing was one of the most captivating facets of his nature,” writes Gershom Scholem in his Foreword to this volume; and Benjamin’s correspondence reveals the evolution of some of his most powerful ideas, while also offering an intimate picture of Benjamin himself and the times in which he lived.

Writing at length to Scholem and Theodor Adorno, and exchanging letters with Rainer Maria Rilke, Hannah Arendt, Max Brod, and Bertolt Brecht, Benjamin elaborates on his ideas about metaphor and language. He reflects on literary figures from Kafka to Karl Kraus, and expounds his personal attitudes toward such subjects as Marxism and French national character. Providing an indispensable tool for any scholar wrestling with Benjamin’s work, The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 1910–1940 is a revelatory look at the man behind much of the twentieth century’s most significant criticism.”

Edited and Annotated by Gershom Scholem and Theodor W. Adorno
Translated by Manfred R. Jacobson and Evelyn M. Jacobson
Publisher University of Chicago Press, 1994
ISBN 0226042375, 9780226042374
674 pages

Publisher

PDF (removed on 2015-11-15 upon request of the publisher)