The Telephone Book - Technology, Schizophrenia, Electric Speech

'Ronell...releases the ways we look at ordinary objects- the phone, the book- and encourages us to question our assumptions about the way things are. This thinking sets us up for an appreciation of the freakiness of the telephone, an object that P.T. Barnum felt uneasy about having in his freakshow because a limb without a human subject, as opposed to humans without limbs, would be too scary for his audience.' -Boston Reveiw

About the author

Avital Ronell is an associate professor of comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley. Her first book, Dictations: On Haunted Writing (1986), treats Goethe's invention of remote control in writing.

Summary

The telephone marks the place of an absence. Calling attention to the importance of the telephone in Nazi organization and propaganda, this book considers the philosophy of Martin Heidegger.

Product details

• Authors: Avital Ronell
• Publisher: Nebraska
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.07.1991
• EAN: 9780803289383
• ISBN: 978-0-8032-8938-3
• No. of pages: 484
• Dimensions: 140 mm x 253 mm x 23 mm
• Weight: 671 g
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: antiquity to present day; Social sciences, law, business > Social sciences (general)