Synopses & Reviews
When we speak of clouds these days, it is as likely that we mean data clouds or network clouds as cumulus or stratus. In their sharing of the term, both kinds of clouds reveal an essential truth: that the natural world and the technological world are not so distinct. In
The Marvelous Clouds, John Durham Peters argues that though we often think of media as environments, the reverse isand#160;just as trueandmdash;environments
are media.
Peters defines media expansively as elements that compose the human world. Drawing from ideas implicit in media philosophy, Peters argues that media are more than carriers of messages: they are the very infrastructures combining nature and culture that allow human life to thrive. and#160;Through an encyclopedic array of examples from the oceans to the skies, The Marvelous Clouds reveals the long prehistory of so-called new media. Digital media, Peters argues, are an extension of early practices tied to the establishment of civilization such as mastering fire, building calendars, reading the stars, creating language, and establishing religions. New media do not take us into uncharted waters, but rather confront us with the deepest and oldest questions of society and ecology: how to manage the relations people have with themselves, others, and the natural world.
A wide-ranging meditation on the many means we have employed to cope with the struggles of existenceandmdash;from navigation to farming, meteorology to Googleandmdash;The Marvelous Clouds shows how media lie at the very heart of our interactions with the world around us. and#160;Petersandrsquo;s and#160;book will not only change how we think about media but provide a new appreciation for the day-to-day foundations of life on earth that we so often take for granted.
Review
andldquo;This book is about media in the way that Moby-Dick is about whaling. When Melville set the Pequod sailing between heaven and earth, he turned the ship into a lens through which his readers could examine humankindandrsquo;s place in the cosmos. In The Marvelous Clouds, Peters turns water, land, fire, and sky into lenses through which readers can explore the role of mediation in every aspect of their lives. This is a completely original, wildly ambitious, and deliciously lyrical book. It will certainly change the way you see media. It might also change the way you see the world.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Wide-ranging, playful, erudite, and delightfully diverse, The Marvelous Clouds redefines media in the largest possible terms, as anything that communicates meaning, including bodies, the environment, and the world itself.and#160; Although this may seem to rob media of its specificity and therefore of its theoretical purchase, in Petersandrsquo;s hands it becomes the occasion for making surprising and insightful connections.and#160; A treat for academics and general readers alike, this is a book not to be missed.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Petersandrsquo;s dazzlingly intelligent and elegantly written book has the potential of marking a long-anticipated threshold in the world of media studies. Conversant with the philosophical traditions and with the ongoing debates in Germany, where this emerging discipline took its origin, his epistemological realism overcomes the conventional positions of the andlsquo;linguistic turnandrsquo; and of andlsquo;constructivismandrsquo; with a fresh and truly inspired unfolding of intuitions ranging from Martin Heideggerand#39;s andlsquo;fourfoldandrsquo; to the Emersonian philosophy of nature. Between earth and sky, Peters understands and analyzes media as the energy behind our environmentandrsquo;s permanent transformations. The Marvelous Clouds, I believe, is the foundational media epistemology that we have been awaiting for decades.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;The book is, on one level, an ambitious re-writing andmdash; a re-synthesis, even andmdash; of concepts of media and culture. On another, it is a rich and entertaining compendium of arcana, covering everything from shipwrighting to planetary motion, from bone evolution to calendrical design. Ultimately, it is nothing less than an attempt at a history of Being, from an unusually brisk, cheerful and pragmatic Heideggerian.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;A highly original book. . . . This is a deeply philosophical and beautifully written account of the modes of being of all things, and their interrelationships.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;More than fundamental. Media in this book are not defined as just more technological supplements to human beings but as a source that opens an extension for human self-knowledge. . . . Peters defines modern technologies as a space endowed with intelligence that seeks to be like God.andrdquo;
Synopsis
Collection of essays from throughout the author's career.
Synopsis
Friedrich Kittler (19432011) 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 functionwith 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 timessometimes baffling, often controversial, and always stimulating.
About the Author
Philosopher, cultural historian, and literary critic Friedrich Kittler had appointments at several German and American universities over the course of his academic career, concluding with his tenure as Chair of Aesthetics and Media History at the Humboldt University of Berlin.