Separating hype from fact, this text investigates the fate of embodiment in the information age. It relates three interwoven stories: how information lost its body, that is, how it came to be conceptualized as an entity separate from the material forms that carry it; the cultural and technological constuction of the cyborg; and the dismantling of the humanist "subject" in cybernetic discourse, along with the emergence of the "posthuman". Ranging across the history of technology, cultural studies and literary criticism, the text shows what had erased, forgotten, and elided to conceive of information as a disembodied entity. The author moves from the post-World War II Macy Conferences on cybernetics to the 1952 novel "Limbo" by Bernard Wolfe; from the concept of self-making to Philip K. Dick's literary explorations of hallucination and reality; and from artificial life to postmodern novels exploring the implications of seeing humans as cybernetic systems.
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Separating hype from fact, this text investigates the fate of embodiment in an information age. It relates three issues: information as an entity separate from the material forms that carry it; the construction of the Cyborg; and the dismantling of the humanist "subject" in cybernetic discourse.
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780226321462
Publisert
1999-02-15
Utgiver
Vendor
University of Chicago Press
Vekt
567 gr
Høyde
24 mm
Bredde
15 mm
Dybde
2 mm
Aldersnivå
UU, UP, P, 05, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
364