Tools of Their Tools

Communications Technologies and American Cultural Practice
1. Auflage 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4438-0978-8
Verlag: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Buch, Englisch, 330 Seiten

The book explores the role of communication technologies in American cultural practice over the last 150 years. Communication technologies are here understood to include audio and visual reproduction technologies, analogue telecommunications such as traditional telephony, radio and television broadcasts, digital telecommunications, computer-mediated communications, telegraphy, and computer networks. The study of the impact of such technologies is a way to explore the various flows and tensions of American culture. How has American society molded communication technologies? How have they, in turn, shaped American history? Are Americans still, in the words of Thoreau, "tools of their tools"? More so or less than during the philosopher's Walden days? How do America's cultural, ethical, and economic assumptions determine and limit the ways in which telecommunications function in American society? Fascinating questions abound.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kosc, Grzegorz

Majer, Krzysztof

Über Autor(innen)

Krzysztof Majer is involved both in American and Canadian studies. He holds a Ph.D. degree from the University of Lódz; the title of his thesis is The Picaro Messiah and the Unworthy Scribe: A Pattern of Obsession in Mordecai Richler’s Later Novels. His academic interests include North American Jewish writing and post-war fiction. He has published articles on Mordecai Richler, Mark Anthony Jarman and John Barth. He is a member of BACS (British Association for Canadian Studies), PACS (Polish Association for Canadian Studies) and PAAS (Polish Association for American Studies). He is currently employed at Adam Mickiewicz University, Kalisz, Poland.

Grzegorz Kosc holds a doctorate in humanities and teaches American literature and culture at the English Institute of the University of Lódz and at the American Studies Center of Warsaw University. He is interested in twentieth-century American poetry, public poetry in particular, political philosophy and photography. He is the author of Robert Lowell: Uncomfortable Epigone of the Grands Maîtres (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2005). Presently he is working on a book on Robert Frost as a national poet.