Overview

This is a guide, in theory and in practice, to how current technological changes have impacted our interaction with texts and with each other. Henry Sussman rereads pivotal moments in literary, philosophical and cultural modernity as anticipating the cybernetic discourse that has increasingly defined theory since the computer revolution. Cognitive science, psychoanalysis and systems theory are paralleled to current trends in literary and philosophical theory. Chapters alternate between theory and readings of literary texts, resulting in a broad but rigorously grounded framework for the relation between literature and computer science. This book is a refreshing perspective on the analog-orientated tradition of theory in the humanities – and offers the first literary-textual genealogy of the digital.

Full Product Details

9781472568816

Table of Contents

Reviews

If by a general and unexamined consensus 'digitallity' has become our age's reigning theme and metaphor, it takes a literary theorist and polymath of mythic proportions to do justice to the complexity and wealth of that metaphor, and to the real relations between fields of knowledge and productivity that animate it. Henry Sussman rises to the task with a book that is as breathtaking in its scope as it is trenchant in its insights. From cybernetics to literature to philosophy and back again, Sussman's ignition of his inexhaustible erudition with a promethean spark of creativity powers a riveting and relentless interrogation of intelligence, a notion that engulfs those of us in the academic domain so closely that it seldom occurs to ask ourselves what, exactly, it is, how its conceptualization affects us, and how we came to think of it the way we do today. William Egginton, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities, Vice Dean for Graduate Education, The Johns Hopkins University, USA.

From Kandinsky to Kafka to systems theory to psychoanalysis to digital feedback loops to Roberto Bola o to Zen... A sprawling, maddening, jet-lagged, and eminently stunning trip through the ruinous Arcades of the 21st century. Justin Read, University at Buffalo (SUNY), USA Sussman rises to the task with a book that is as breathtaking in its scope as it is trenchant in its insights. From cybernetics to literature to philosophy and back again, Sussman's ignition of his inexhaustible erudition with a promethean spark of creativity powers a riveting and relentless interrogation of intelligence, a notion that engulfs those of us in the academic domain so closely that it seldom occurs to ask ourselves what, exactly, it is, how its conceptualization affects us, and how we came to think of it the way we do today. William Egginton, The Johns Hopkins University, USA Who knew high theory could still be this much fun? Sussman's Playful Intelligence stages a mass wedding (or is it a group grope?) in which Dostoevsky, Kafka, Derrida, and Lacan pair off with the unexpected likes of Douglas Hofstadter, Anthony Wilden, Gregory Bateson, and D. W. Winnicott. His delightful critical dances are enlivened with rhetorical flights of uninhibited and erudite wordplay. Swinging cybernetics across literary landscapes, Sussman takes systems discourses on joyrides that both disrupt their scientific pretensions and refresh their relevance to the philosophical humanities. Never dull, utterly sincere, sublimely good-natured, and blithely beyond mundane academic cares, Playful Intelligence performs its theme to perfection. Bruce Clarke, Texas Tech University, USA

If by a general and unexamined consensus 'digitallity' has become our age's reigning theme and metaphor, it takes a literary theorist and polymath of mythic proportions to do justice to the complexity and wealth of that metaphor, and to the real relations between fields of knowledge and productivity that animate it. Henry Sussman rises to the task with a book that is as breathtaking in its scope as it is trenchant in its insights. From cybernetics to literature to philosophy and back again, Sussman's ignition of his inexhaustible erudition with a promethean spark of creativity powers a riveting and relentless interrogation of intelligence, a notion that engulfs those of us in the academic domain so closely that it seldom occurs to ask ourselves what, exactly, it is, how its conceptualization affects us, and how we came to think of it the way we do today. William Egginton, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities, Vice Dean for Graduate Education, The Johns Hopkins University, USA. Who knew high theory could still be this much fun? Henry Sussman's Playful Intelligence stages a mass wedding (or is it a group grope?) in which Dostoevsky, Kafka, Derrida, and Lacan pair off with the unexpected likes of Douglas Hofstadter, Anthony Wilden, Gregory Bateson, and D. W. Winnicott. His delightful critical dances are enlivened with rhetorical flights of uninhibited and erudite wordplay. Swinging cybernetics across literary landscapes, Sussman takes systems discourses on joyrides that both disrupt their scientific pretensions and refresh their relevance to the philosophical humanities. Never dull, utterly sincere, sublimely good-natured, and blithely beyond mundane academic cares, Playful Intelligence performs its theme to perfection. Bruce Clarke,

If by a general and unexamined consensus 'digitallity' has become our age's reigning theme and metaphor, it takes a literary theorist and polymath of mythic proportions to do justice to the complexity and wealth of that metaphor, and to the real relations between fields of knowledge and productivity that animate it. Henry Sussman rises to the task with a book that is as breathtaking in its scope as it is trenchant in its insights. From cybernetics to literature to philosophy and back again, Sussman's ignition of his inexhaustible erudition with a promethean spark of creativity powers a riveting and relentless interrogation of intelligence, a notion that engulfs those of us in the academic domain so closely that it seldom occurs to ask ourselves what, exactly, it is, how its conceptualization affects us, and how we came to think of it the way we do today. William Egginton, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities, Vice Dean for Graduate Education, The Johns Hopkins University, USA. Who knew high theory could still be this much fun? Henry Sussman's Playful Intelligence stages a mass wedding (or is it a group grope?) in which Dostoevsky, Kafka, Derrida, and Lacan pair off with the unexpected likes of Douglas Hofstadter, Anthony Wilden, Gregory Bateson, and D. W. Winnicott. His delightful critical dances are enlivened with rhetorical flights of uninhibited and erudite wordplay. Swinging cybernetics across literary landscapes, Sussman takes systems discourses on joyrides that both disrupt their scientific pretensions and refresh their relevance to the philosophical humanities. Never dull, utterly sincere, sublimely good-natured, and blithely beyond mundane academic cares, Playful Intelligence performs its theme to perfection. Bruce Clarke, Paul Whitfield Horn Professor of Literature and Science, Texas Tech University, USA This is a work in quantum leaps. Or rather, a theoretical interrogation composed of quantum leaps. From Kandinsky to Kafka to systems theory to psychoanalysis to digital feedback loops to Roberto Bola o to Zen. Weaving in and out of autobiography, his own personal journey through art, philosophy, critical theory, and the institutions that govern them, Sussman nonetheless locates us somewhere outside of ourselves, unbearably close to the complex super-human operating systems of order and control that invariably wound us. Here art, literature and critical theory never stand above reality; they are screens to interface between the organic and inorganic, lived experience and unlivable existence. A sprawling, maddening, jet-lagged, and eminently stunning trip through the ruinous Arcades of the 21st century. Justin Read, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, University at Buffalo (SUNY), USA.

From Kandinsky to Kafka to systems theory to psychoanalysis to digital feedback loops to Roberto Bolano to Zen... A sprawling, maddening, jet-lagged, and eminently stunning trip through the ruinous Arcades of the 21st century. Justin Read, University at Buffalo (SUNY), USA Sussman rises to the task with a book that is as breathtaking in its scope as it is trenchant in its insights. From cybernetics to literature to philosophy and back again, Sussman's ignition of his inexhaustible erudition with a promethean spark of creativity powers a riveting and relentless interrogation of intelligence, a notion that engulfs those of us in the academic domain so closely that it seldom occurs to ask ourselves what, exactly, it is, how its conceptualization affects us, and how we came to think of it the way we do today. William Egginton, The Johns Hopkins University, USA Who knew high theory could still be this much fun? Sussman's Playful Intelligence stages a mass wedding (or is it a group grope?) in which Dostoevsky, Kafka, Derrida, and Lacan pair off with the unexpected likes of Douglas Hofstadter, Anthony Wilden, Gregory Bateson, and D. W. Winnicott. His delightful critical dances are enlivened with rhetorical flights of uninhibited and erudite wordplay. Swinging cybernetics across literary landscapes, Sussman takes systems discourses on joyrides that both disrupt their scientific pretensions and refresh their relevance to the philosophical humanities. Never dull, utterly sincere, sublimely good-natured, and blithely beyond mundane academic cares, Playful Intelligence performs its theme to perfection. Bruce Clarke, Texas Tech University, USA

Author Information

Henry Sussman is Visiting Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures at Yale University, USA.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available