The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts - Couverture rigide

Lanham, Richard A.

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0226468836 ISBN 13 : 9780226468839

Editeur : University of Chicago Press, 1993

Synopsis

The personal computer has revolutionized the structure of communication, concealing beneath its versatility and consumer appeal a bold transition to electronic, postmodern culture. Unchecked by the inherent limitations of conventional print, digitized text has introduced a radically new medium of expression. Interactive, volatile, mixing word and image, the electronic word challenges all our assumptions about artistic, educational and political discourse. "The Electronic Word", Richard Lanham's collection of witty, provocative and engaging essays, explores this challenge. With hope and enthusiasm, Lanham surveys the effects of electronic text on the arts and letters and how they might be taught in a newly democratized society. To those who view electronic text as a cultural catastrophe, he counters that "electronic expression has come not to destroy the Western arts but to fulfil them." Throughout, Lanham argues that the dichotomy between a fixed, authoritative printed text and the dynamic, negotiable electronic word re-enacts a much older opposition, the ancient debate between the philosophers and the rhetoricians. The computer, an "intrinsically rhetorical device," enfranchises the free play and experimentation that pervade postmodern arts and letters. It embodies the new kind of seriousness that is now replacing 19th-century cultural solemnity. Whether discussing how electronic text fulfils the expressive agenda of 20th-century visual art and music, how it will revolutionize the university curriculum, how it democratizes the expressive instruments of art, or how it poses anew the cultural accountability of humanism itself, Lanham insists that the move from book to screen gives cause for optimism, not apocalyptic despair.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

The personal computer has revolutionized communication, and digitized text has introduced a radically new medium of expression. Interactive, volatile, mixing word and image, the electronic word challenges our assumptions about the shape of culture itself. This highly acclaimed collection of Richard Lanham's witty, provocative, and engaging essays surveys the effects of electronic text on the arts and letters. Lanham explores how electronic text fulfills the expressive agenda of twentieth-century visual art and music, revolutionizes the curriculum, democratizes the instruments of art, and poses anew the cultural accountability of humanism itself. Persuading us with uncommon grace and power that the move from book to screen gives cause for optimism, not despair, Lanham proclaims that "electronic expression has come not to destroy the Western arts but to fulfill them" The Electronic Word is also available as a Chicago Expanded Book for your Macintosh. This hypertext edition allows readers to move freely through the text, marking "pages" annotating passages, searching words and phrases, and immediately accessing annotations, which have been enhanced for this edition. In a special prefatory essay, Lanham introduces the features of this electronic edition and gives a vividly applied critique of this dynamic new edition.

Biographie de l'auteur

Richard A. Lanham is professor emeritus of English at UCLA and President of Rhetorica, Inc. He has written ten books, including A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms and Literacy and the Survival of Humanism.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: University of Chicago Press
• Date d'édition: 1993
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0226468836
• ISBN 13: 9780226468839
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 256
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible