Title & Author:

Cultures of obsolescence : history, materiality, and the digital age / edited by Babette B. Tischleder and Sarah Wasserman.

Publication:

Houndmills, Basingstoke, England ; New York, NY : Palgrave Macmillan, [2015]

Description:

x, 238 pages : illustructions ; 22 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-223) and index.
Part I History -- 1. Rags, Bones, and Plastic Bags: Obsolescence, Trash, and American Consumer Culture / Susan Strasser -- 2. Architectures of Obsolescence: Lessons for History / Daniel M. Abramson -- Part II Media and the Digital Age -- 3. Proliferation and Obsolescence of the Historical Record in the Digital Era / John Durham Peters -- 4. Replacement, Displacement, and Obsolescence in the Digital Age / William Uricchio -- 5. The Future History of the Book: Time, Attention, Convention / Kathleen Fitzpatrick -- 6. The Pleasures of Paper: Tethering Literature to Obsolete Material Forms / Alexander Starre -- Part III Aesthetics -- 7. The Horror of Details: Obsolescence and Annihilation in Miyako Ishiuchi's Photography of Atomic Bomb Artifacts / Jani Scandura -- 8. The Poetics of Patination in the Work of William Gibson / Hanjo Berressem -- 9. Untimely: Obsolescence, Late Modernism, and the View Out of Giovanni's Room / MaryAnn Snyder-Korber.

Summary:

Obsolescence is fundamental to the experience of modernity, not simply one dimension of an economic system. The contributors to this book investigate obsolescence as a historical phenomenon, an aesthetic practice, and an affective mode. Because obsolescence depends upon the supersession and disappearance of what is old and outmoded, this volume sheds light on what usually remains unseen or overlooked. Calling attention to the fact that obsolescence can structure everything from the self to the skyscraper, Cultures of Obsolescence asks readers to rethink existing relationships between the old and the new. Moreover, the essays in this volume argue for the paradoxical ways in which subjects and their concepts of the human, of newness, and of the future are constituted by a relationship to the obsolete. -- Provided by publisher.

ISBN:

9781137470898 (alk. paper)
1137470895 (alk. paper)
9781137463647 (PDF ebook)

Subject:

Consumption (Economics) Social aspects.
Product obsolescence Social aspects.
Information technology Social aspects.
Obsolescence Aspect social.
Technologie de l'information Aspect social.

Added entries:

Tischleder, Babette Bärbel, 1968-
Wasserman, Sarah L.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 298109
Call No.: BIB 244391
Status: Available