The perversity of things : Hugo Gernsback on media, tinkering, and scientifiction / edited by Grant Wythoff.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gernsback, Hugo, 1884-1967, author.

Contributor:

Wythoff, Grant, editor.

Series:

Electronic mediations ; v. 52.

Electronic mediations ; 52

Standardized Title:

Works. Selections

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Gernsback, Hugo, 1884-1967--History and criticism.

Gernsback, Hugo.

Gernsback, Hugo, 1884-1967.

Science fiction, American--History and criticism.

Science fiction, American.

Mass media in literature.

Physical Description:

xvi, 359 pages : illustrations ; 28 cm.

Place of Publication:

Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, [2016]

Summary:

"In 1905, a young Jewish immigrant from Luxembourg founded an electrical supply shop in New York. This inventor, writer, and publisher Hugo Gernsback would later become famous for launching the first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, in 1926. But while science fiction's annual Hugo Awards were named in his honor, there has been surprisingly little understanding of how the genre began among a community of tinkerers all drawn to Gernsback's vision of comprehending the future of media through making. In The Perversity of Things, Grant Wythoff makes available texts by Hugo Gernsback that were foundational both for science fiction and the emergence of media studies. Wythoff argues that Gernsback developed a means of describing and assessing the cultural impact of emerging media long before media studies became an academic discipline. From editorials and blueprints to media histories, critical essays, and short fiction, Wythoff has collected a wide range of Gernsback's writings that have been out of print since their magazine debut in the early 1900s. These articles cover such topics as television; the regulation of wireless/radio; war and technology; speculative futures; media-archaeological curiosities like the dynamophone and hypnobioscope; and more. All together, this collection shows how Gernsback's publications evolved from an electrical parts catalog to a full-fledged literary genre. The Perversity of Things aims to reverse the widespread misunderstanding of Gernsback within the history of science fiction criticism. Through painstaking research and extensive annotations and commentary, Wythoff reintroduces us to Gernsback and the origins of science fiction"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: Thematic Contents

Preface: How to Use This Book

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I. Tinkering

A New Interrupter (1905)

The Dynamophone (1908)

The Born and the Mechanical Inventor (1911)

The Radioson Detector (1914)

What to Invent (1916)

The Perversity of Things (1916)

Thomas A. Edison Speaks to You (1919)

Human Progress (1922)

Results of the $500.00 Prize Contest: Who Will Save the Radio Amateur? (1923)

The Isolator (1925)

The Detectorium (1926)

New Radio "Things" Wanted (1927)

Part II. History and Theory of Media

The Aerophone Number (1908)

Why "Radio Amateur News" is Here (1919)

Science and Invention (1920)

Learn and Work While You Sleep (1921)

The "New" Science and Invention (1923)

Are We Intelligent? (1923)

Part III. Broadcast Regulation

The Wireless Joker (1908)

The Wireless Association of America (1909)

The Roberts Wireless Bill (1910)

The Alexander Wireless Bill (1912)

Wireless and the Amateur: A Retrospect (1913)

The Future of Radio (1919)

Sayville (1915)

War and the Radio Amateur (1917)

Silencing America's Wireless (1917)

Amateur Radio Restored (1919)

Wired Versus Space Radio (1927)

Part IV. Wireless

[Editorials] (1909)

From The Wireless Telephone (1911)

A Treatise on Wireless Telegraphy (1913)

The Future of Wireless (1916)

From Radio for All (1922)

Radio Broadcasting (1922)

Is Radio at a Standstill? (1926)

Edison and Radio (1926)

Why the Radio Set Builder (1927)

Radio Enters a New Phase (1927)

The Short-Wave Era (1928)

Part V. Television

Television and the Telephot (1909)

A Radio-Controlled Television Plane (1924)

After Television

What? (1927)

Television Technique (1931)

Part VI. Sound

Hearing Through Your Teeth (1916)

Grand Opera by Wireless (1919)

The Physiophone: Music for the Deaf (1920)

The "Pianorad" (1926)

Part VII. Scientifiction

Signaling to Mars (1909)

Our Cover (1913)

Phoney Patent Offizz: Bookworm's Nurse (1915)

Imagination Versus Fact (1916)

Interplanetarian Wireless (1920)

An American Jules Verne (1920)

10,000 Years Hence (1922)

Predicting Future Inventions (1923)

The Dark Age of Science (1925)

A New Sort of Magazine (1926)

The Lure of Scientifiction (1926)

Fiction Versus Facts (1926)

Editorially Speaking (1926)

Imagination and Reality (1926)

How to Write "Science" Stories (1930)

Science Fiction vs. Science Faction (1930)

Wonders of the Machine Age (1931)

Reasonableness in Science Fiction (1932)

Part VIII. Selected Fiction

Ralph 124C 41+, part 3 (1911)

The Scientific Adventures of Baron Munchhausen, part 5: "Munchhausen Departs for the Planet Mars" (1915)

The Magnetic Storm (1918)

The Electric Duel (1927)

The Killing Flash (1929)

Notes

Index

Chronological Contents

A Treatise on Wir.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781517900847

1517900840

9781517900854

1517900859

OCLC:

951158076