Rewiring the real
Subtitle: in conversation with William Gaddis, Richard Powers, Mark Danielewski, and Don DeLillo
By: Mark C. Taylor
Series: Religion, culture, and public life
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 322
ISBN-13: 9780231160407; 9780231531641
Subjects: Technological innovations; Theology in literature; Spirituality in literature; Technology in literature; Religious aspects; American literature; History and criticism
Description: "Digital and electronic technologies that act as extensions of our bodies and minds are changing how we live, think, act, and write. Some welcome these developments as bringing humans closer to unified consciousness and eternal life. Others worry that invasive globalized technologies threaten to destroy the self and the world. Whether feared or desired, these innovations provoke emotions that have long fueled the religious imagination, suggesting the presence of a latent spirituality in an era mistakenly deemed secular and posthuman. William Gaddis, Richard Powers, Mark Danielewski, and Don DeLillo are American authors who explore this phenomenon thoroughly in their work. Engaging the works of each in conversation, Mark C. Taylor discusses their sophisticated representations of new media, communications, information, and virtual technologies and their transformative effects on the self and society. He focuses on Gaddis's The Recognitions, Powers's Plowing the Dark, Danielewski's House of Leaves, and DeLillo's Underworld, following the interplay of technology and religion in their narratives and their imagining of the transition from human to posthuman states. Their challenging ideas and inventive styles reveal the fascinating ways religious interests affect emerging technologies and how, in turn, these technologies guide spiritual aspirations. To read these novels from this perspective is to see them and the world anew."--Publisher's website.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.