Speaking into the air : a history of the idea of communication / John Durham Peters. [print]

By: Material type: TextTextPublication details: Chicago : University of Chicago Press, (c)1999.Description: x, 293 pages ; 24 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
Subject(s): LOC classification:
  • P90.P482.S643 1999
Available additional physical forms:
  • COPYRIGHT NOT covered - Click this link to request copyright permission:
Contents:
The varied senses of "communication" -- Sorting theoretical debates in (and via) the 1920s -- Technical and therapeutic discourses after World War II. 1. Dialogue and dissemination. Dialogue and eros in the Phaedrus -- Dissemination in the synoptic gospels. 2. History of an error : the spiritualist tradition. Christian sources -- From matter to mind : "communication" in the seventeenth century -- Nineteenth-century spiritualism. 3. Toward a more robust vision of spirit : Hegel, Marx, and Kierkegaard. Hegel on recognition -- Marx (versus Locke) on money -- Kierkegaard's incognitos.
Hermeneutics as communication with the dead -- Dead letters. 5. The quest for authentic connection, or bridging the chasm. The interpersonal walls of idealism -- Fraud or contact? : James on psychical research -- Reach out and touch someone : the telephonic uncanny -- Radio : broadcasting as dissemination (and dialogue). 6. Machines, animals, and aliens : horizons of incommunicability. The Turing test and the insuperability of eros -- Animals and empathy with the inhuman -- Communication with aliens. Conclusion : a squeeze of the hand. The gaps of which communication is made -- The privilege of the receiver -- The dark side of communication -- The irreducibility of touch and time.
Review: "In contemporary debates, communication is variously invoked as a panacea for the problems of both democracy and love, as a dream of a new information society brought about by new technologies, and as a wistful ideal of human relations. How, and why, did communication come to shoulder the load it currently carries? Speaking into the Air, a broad history of communication, illuminates our expectations of it as both historically specific and a fundamental knot in Western thought." "In John Durham Peters's work, the teachings of Socrates and Jesus, the theology of Saint Augustine, philosophy in the wake of Hegel, and the American tradition from Emerson through William James all become relevant for understanding communication in our age."--Jacket.
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Item type Current library Collection Call number Status Date due Barcode
Circulating Book (checkout times vary with patron status) Circulating Book (checkout times vary with patron status) G. Allen Fleece Library CIRCULATING COLLECTION Non-fiction P90.P388 1999 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Available 31923001022058

Includes bibliographies and index.

Introduction : the problem of communication. The historicity of communication -- The varied senses of "communication" -- Sorting theoretical debates in (and via) the 1920s -- Technical and therapeutic discourses after World War II. 1. Dialogue and dissemination. Dialogue and eros in the Phaedrus -- Dissemination in the synoptic gospels. 2. History of an error : the spiritualist tradition. Christian sources -- From matter to mind : "communication" in the seventeenth century -- Nineteenth-century spiritualism. 3. Toward a more robust vision of spirit : Hegel, Marx, and Kierkegaard. Hegel on recognition -- Marx (versus Locke) on money -- Kierkegaard's incognitos.

4. Phantasms of the living, dialogues with the dead. Recording and transmission -- Hermeneutics as communication with the dead -- Dead letters. 5. The quest for authentic connection, or bridging the chasm. The interpersonal walls of idealism -- Fraud or contact? : James on psychical research -- Reach out and touch someone : the telephonic uncanny -- Radio : broadcasting as dissemination (and dialogue). 6. Machines, animals, and aliens : horizons of incommunicability. The Turing test and the insuperability of eros -- Animals and empathy with the inhuman -- Communication with aliens. Conclusion : a squeeze of the hand. The gaps of which communication is made -- The privilege of the receiver -- The dark side of communication -- The irreducibility of touch and time.

"In contemporary debates, communication is variously invoked as a panacea for the problems of both democracy and love, as a dream of a new information society brought about by new technologies, and as a wistful ideal of human relations. How, and why, did communication come to shoulder the load it currently carries? Speaking into the Air, a broad history of communication, illuminates our expectations of it as both historically specific and a fundamental knot in Western thought." "In John Durham Peters's work, the teachings of Socrates and Jesus, the theology of Saint Augustine, philosophy in the wake of Hegel, and the American tradition from Emerson through William James all become relevant for understanding communication in our age."--Jacket.

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