Speaking Into the Air: A History of the Idea of CommunicationCommunication plays a vital and unique role in society-often blamed for problems when it breaks down and at the same time heralded as a panacea for human relations. A sweeping history of communication, Speaking Into the Air illuminates our expectations of communication as both historically specific and a fundamental knot in Western thought. "This is a most interesting and thought-provoking book. . . . Peters maintains that communication is ultimately unthinkable apart from the task of establishing a kingdom in which people can live together peacefully. Given our condition as mortals, communication remains not primarily a problem of technology, but of power, ethics and art." —Antony Anderson, New Scientist "Guaranteed to alter your thinking about communication. . . . Original, erudite, and beautifully written, this book is a gem." —Kirkus Reviews "Peters writes to reclaim the notion of authenticity in a media-saturated world. It's this ultimate concern that renders his book a brave, colorful exploration of the hydra-headed problems presented by a rapid-fire popular culture." —Publishers Weekly What we have here is a failure-to-communicate book. Funny thing is, it communicates beautifully. . . . Speaking Into the Air delivers what superb serious books always do-hours of intellectual challenge as one absorbs the gradually unfolding vision of an erudite, creative author." —Carlin Romano, Philadelphia Inquirer |
Contents
The Problem of Communication | 1 |
The Historicity of Communication | 3 |
The Varied Senses of Communication | 6 |
Sorting Theoretical Debates in and via the 1920s | 10 |
Technical and Therapeutic Discourses after World War 11 | 22 |
Dialogue and Dissemination | 33 |
Dialogue and Eros in the Phaedrus | 36 |
Dissemination in the Synoptic Gospels | 51 |
The Quest for Authentic Connection or Bridging the Chasm | 177 |
The Interpersonal Walls of Idealism | 180 |
Fraud or Contact? fames on Psychical Research | 188 |
The Telephonic Uncanny | 195 |
Broadcasting as Dissemination and Dialogue | 206 |
Machines Animals and Aliens Horizons of Incommunicability | 227 |
The Turing Test and the Insuperability of Eros | 233 |
Animals and Empathy with the Inhuman | 241 |
History of an Error The Spiritualist Tradition | 63 |
Christian Sources | 66 |
Communication in the Seventeenth Century | 77 |
NineteenthCentury Spiritualism | 89 |
Toward a More Robust Vision of Spirit Hegel Marx and Kierkegaard | 109 |
Marx versus Locke on Money | 119 |
Kierkegaards Incognitos | 127 |
Phantasms of the Living Dialogues with the Dead | 137 |
Hermeneutics as Communication with the Dead | 147 |
Dead Letters | 165 |
Other editions - View all
Speaking Into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication John Durham Peters Limited preview - 1999 |
Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication John Durham Peters Limited preview - 2012 |
Speaking Into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication John Durham Peters No preview available - 1999 |
Common terms and phrases
Adorno alien angels animals argues audience Augustine authentic Bartleby body broadcasting called Cambridge cation Charles Horton Cooley Charles Sanders Peirce communica communication theory Cooley culture dead letters dialogue discourse dissemination distance doppelgängers dream Emerson eros erotic Essay ether Extraterrestrial ghosts Hannah Arendt Hegel hermeneutics human ideas individual intelligence interaction interpretation John John Locke Kafka Kierkegaard kind language living Locke Locke's lover Lysias machines Marx mass communication means medium mesmerism messages mind modern moral munication nature never nication nineteenth century notion object one's parable Peirce Phaedrus philosophical phonograph Plato political problem psychical research question radio Ralph Waldo Emerson rhetoric sense SETI sharing signal signs social Socrates solipsism Søren Kierkegaard soul space speak speech spirit spiritualist telegraph telepathy telephone things thought tion trans transmission Turing Turing test twentieth century University Press vision voice Walter Benjamin William James wireless words writing York