Design, Mediation, and the Posthuman

by Dennis M. Weiss (Editor), Amy D. Propen (Editor), Colbey Emmerson Reid (Editor)

Though the progress of technology continually pushes life toward virtual existence, the last decade has witnessed a renewed focus on materiality. Design, Mediation, and the Posthuman bears witness to the attention paid by literary theorists, digital humanists, rhetoricians, philosophers, and designers to the crafted environment, the manner in which artifacts mediate human relations, and the constitution of a world in which the boundary between humans and things has seemingly imploded. The chapters reflect on questions about the extent to which we ought to view humans and nonhuman artifacts as having equal capacity for agency and life, and the ways in which technological mediation challenges the central tenets of humanism and anthropocentrism.

Contemporary theories of human-object relations presage the arrival of the posthuman, which is no longer a futuristic or science-fictional concept but rather one descriptive of the present, and indeed, the past. Discussions of the posthuman already have a long history in fields like literary theory, rhetoric, and philosophy, and as advances in design and technology result in increasingly engaging artifacts that mediate more and more aspects of everyday life, it becomes necessary to engage in a systematic, interdisciplinary, critical examination of the intersection of the domains of design, technological mediation, and the posthuman. Thus, this collection brings diverse disciplines together to foster a dialogue on significant technological issues pertinent to philosophy, rhetoric, aesthetics, and science.

Genres: Technology

326 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Mihai · Rating 4 out of 5]

As technology advances and affects every facet of our life it's worth training the muscle of reflection so to analyze the nature of these changes and understand the details of these technological effects.

This book packs an impressive collection of academic articles that touch on notions such as: the posthuman self, agency, intentionality, breaking out of the subject-object paradigm, critical theory, post-phenomenology and technological mediation, the dance between the user and the artefact...if any of these topics interest you, this a great starting point.

Out of the essays in the book, the ones signed by the three editors stood out:

The Rhetorical Work of the GPS: Geographic Knowledge Making and the Technologically Mediated Body by Amy D. Propen

Victorian Cybernetics: Networking Technology, Disability, and Interior Design by Colbey Emmerson Reid

Seduced by the Machine: Human-Technology Relations and Sociable Robots by Dennis M. Weiss.

The essay on the GPS gives you an original perspective on how a technology like GPS affects not only the human user but also the relationships it has with the humans around. You don't often read an analysis where you feel part of the study group.

My favourite article by far was the analysis done by professor Dennis M. Weiss.
Using a fantastic reference (the Twilight Zone episode - The Loner) he produced an outstanding mapping on the epistemic approaches in the world of Philosophy of Technology. His synthesis not only cleared up a lot in my head related to the two competing perspectives used today in analyzing Technology, but also sent me directly to his official webpage from where I downloaded 5 of his papers and devoured them until late in the night. You rarely find somebody in academia that has the gift of writing besides his knowledge. His next book "Being Human in a Digital Age" will be on my pre-order as soon as he will finish it.

[Mills College Library]

128 D4574 2014