Description
Book SynopsisToward the end of the nineteenth century, the hegemony of the printed word was shattered by the arrival of new media technologies that offered novel ways of communicating and storing data. Previously, writing had operated by way of symbolic mediationall data had to pass through the needle''s eye of the written signifierbut phonography, photography, and cinematography stored physical effects of the real in the shape of sound waves and light. The entire question of referentiality had to be recast in light of these new media technologies; in addition, the use of the typewriter changed the perception of writing from that of a unique expression of a literate individual to that of a sequence of naked material signifiers.
Part technological history of the emergent new media in the late nineteenth century, part theoretical discussion of the responses to these mediaincluding texts by Rilke, Kafka, and Heidegger, as well as elaborations by Edison, Bell, Turing, and other innovatorsGr
Trade Review
"Kittler's thesis is timely and intriguing. . . . To read this book is to take a wild ride through philosophy, music, the visual arts, popular culture, engineering, psychoanalysis, the history of science, literature, communication studies, film studies, and more. . . . This book belongs on any reading list in media studies, and should be essential for anyone interested in the intersections of comparative literature, literary theory, and media studies. Gramaphone, Film, and Typewriter is a stunning achievement. . . ."—The Comparalist
"Recommended for graduate collections in media studies, especially those including European scholarship."—Choice
"Friedrich Kittler proves a welcome exception to the standardized academic format of many of his German colleagues. . . . The excellent translation by Geoffrey-Winthrop Young and Michael Wutz is highly readable (no awkward Germanisms) and is preceded by a thorough and incisive introduction. . . . The present volume is Kittler's most accessible work so far, since it is written for expert and general reader alike."—Johns Hopkins University Press
"Kittler's broadband scholarly panoptics afford a sublime techno-discursive vista, and in particular a point of lucid observation on the ongoing relativization of literary production."—American Book Review
Table of Contents
Translator's introduction; Preface; Introduction; Gramophone; Film; Typewriter; Notes; Bibliography.
