The truth of the technological world : essays on the genealogy of presence / Friedrich A. Kittler ; with an afterword by Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht ; translated by Erik Butler.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kittler, Friedrich A., author.

Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich, author of introduction, etc.

Contributor:

Butler, Erik, translator.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Communication and technology--Philosophy.

Communication and technology.

Literature--History and criticism.

Literature.

Communication--Philosophy.

Communication.

Technology--Philosophy.

Technology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (400 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

1. Poet, Mother, Child: On the Romantic Invention of Sexuality

2. Nietzsche (1844–1900)

3. Lullaby of Birdland

4. The God of the Ears

5. Flechsig, Schreber, Freud: An Information Network at the Turn of the Century

6. Romanticism, Psychoanalysis, Film: A Story of Doubles

7. Media and Drugs in Pynchon’s Second World War

8. Heinrich von Ofterdingen as Data Feed

9. World-Breath: On Wagner’s Media Technology

10. The City Is a Medium

11. Rock Music: A Misuse of Military Equipment

12. Signal-to-Noise Ratio

13. The Artificial Intelligence of World War: Alan Turing

14. Unconditional Surrender

15. Protected Mode

16. There Is No Software

17. Il fiore delle truppe scelte

18. Eros and Aphrodite

19. Homer and Writing

20. The Alphabet of the Greeks: On the Archeology of Writing

21. In the Wake of the Odyssey

22. Martin Heidegger, Media, and the Gods of Greece: De-severance Heralds the Approach of the Gods

23. Pathos and Ethos: An Aristotelian Observation

24. Media History as the Event of Truth: On the Singularity of Friedrich A. Kittler’s Works—An Afterword by Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht

Notes

Credits

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780804792622

0804792623

OCLC:

923709369