Research Catalog

Title

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

Author

Peters, John Durham.

Publication

Chicago, Ill. : University of Chicago Press, 1999.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

x, 293 pages; 24 cm

Summary

"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."--BOOK JACKET.

Subject

Communication > History

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index

Contents

Introduction: The Problem of Communication -- 1. Dialogue and Dissemination -- 2. History of an Error: The Spiritualist Tradition -- 3. Toward a More Robust Vision of Spirit: Hegel, Marx, and Kierkegaard -- 4. Phantasms of the Living, Dialogues with the Dead -- 5. The Quest for Authentic Connection, or Bridging the Chasm -- 6. Machines, Animals, and Aliens: Horizons of Incommunicability -- Conclusion: A Squeeze of the Hand -- App. Extracts (Supplied by a Sub-sublibrarian).

ISBN

• 0226662764 (alk. paper)
• 0226662772 (pbk.)

LCCN

98050308

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries