Technology and Literature
Part of Cambridge Critical Concepts
- Editor: Adam Hammond, University of Toronto
- Date Published: December 2023
- availability: Available
- format: Hardback
- isbn: 9781108472586
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Whereas previous books have explored how literature depicts or discusses scientific concepts, this book argues that literature is a technology. It shows how literature has been shaped by technological revolutions, and reveals the essential work that literature has done in helping to uncover the consequences of new technologies. Individual chapters focus on how specific literary technologies – the development of writing, the printing press, typewriters, the computer – changed the kinds of stories it was possible to tell, and how one could tell them. They also cover the way that literature has engaged with non-literary technologies – clocks, compasses, trains, telegraphs, cameras, bombs, computer networks – to help its readers to work through the new social configurations and new possibilities for human identity and imagination that they unveil. Human life is inescapably mediated through technology; literature demonstrates this, and thus helps its readers to engage consciously and actively with their technological worlds.
Read more- Shows how major technological shifts – from the invention of writing to the development of digital text – affected literary production
- Provides a series of readable chapters on literary engagements with particular technologies, from compasses to cameras to bombs
- Essays present media history in an accessible and engaging way
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×Product details
- Date Published: December 2023
- format: Hardback
- isbn: 9781108472586
- length: 350 pages
- dimensions: 236 x 155 x 29 mm
- weight: 0.76kg
- availability: Available
Table of Contents
List of figures
List of contributors
Timeline
Introduction Adam Hammond
Part I. Origins:
1. Orality and writing I. J. MacRae
2. Manuscript Bonnie Mak
3. The hand press, 1450–1800 Paula McDowell
4. The mechanical press, 1800–1900 Simon Reader
5. The typewriter Darren Wershler
6. Literature in the electric age Lise Jaillant
7. Digital text Maxwell Foxman
Part II. Developments:
8. Prostheses Alice Hall
9. Clocks Scott Lightsey
10. Compasses Chris Barrett
11. Telescopes Peter C. Herman
12. Steam engines Nicola Kirkby
13. Wires Aaron Worth
14. Cameras Beci Carver
15. Phonographs Jason Camlot
16. Waves and rays Jennifer A. Janechek
17. The bomb Ann Larabee
18. Networks David Ciccoricco
Part III. Applications:
19. Distant reading Natalie M. Houston
20. Visualization Daniel Carter
21. Digital editions Susan Brown
Index.
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