The Switch: An Off and on History of Digital Humans

Author:   Jason Puskar
Publisher:   University of Minnesota Press
ISBN:  

9781517915391


Pages:   400
Publication Date:   21 November 2023
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   Temporarily unavailable   Availability explained
The supplier advises that this item is temporarily unavailable. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out to you.

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The Switch: An Off and on History of Digital Humans


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Full Product Details

Author:   Jason Puskar
Publisher:   University of Minnesota Press
Imprint:   University of Minnesota Press
Dimensions:   Width: 17.80cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.771kg
ISBN:  

9781517915391


ISBN 10:   1517915392
Pages:   400
Publication Date:   21 November 2023
Audience:   General/trade ,  Professional and scholarly ,  General ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Temporarily unavailable   Availability explained
The supplier advises that this item is temporarily unavailable. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out to you.

Table of Contents

Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Awake at the Switch Part I. Start 1. Origin Stories 2. Designing the Button 3. Analogs and Analogies Part II. Digital Bodies 4. The Point of Touch 5. Counting on the Body 6. Darth Vader’s Nipples Part III. Keyboard Rationality 7. The Keyboard’s Checkered Past 8. Human Types 9. Chording and Coding 10. The Archaeology of Qwerty Part IV. Objects of Play 11. The Toys of Dionysus 12. Pinball Wizards Part V. Haptic Liberalism 13. The Control Panel of Democracy 14. Switching Philosophies 15. Pistolgraphs 16. First-Person Shooters Epilogue: Self-Destruct Notes Index

Reviews

"""In this deeply ambitious and sophisticated book, Jason Puskar invites us to think more seriously about what happens almost every time we touch one of our devices and turn it on or swipe or click. From the technologies at our fingertips to the vastly larger networks of politics and language that they operate and represent, The Switch provides a fascinating cultural history of how we have made the modern world, and been remade in turn, by the simplest of human actions and the connections they enable.""—Mark Goble, author of Beautiful Circuits: Modernism and the Mediated Life   ""A dazzling, beautifully written history of a pervasive but seemingly unremarkable technology of modern life: the binary switch. Jason Puskar’s delightful and important book will fascinate historians of media and technology; it should be required reading for anyone curious about how fantasies of liberal agency are cultivated in the buttons, keyboards, triggers, and toys that make us human.""—Justus Nieland, author of Happiness by Design: Modernism and Media in the Eames Era  "


""In this deeply ambitious and sophisticated book, Jason Puskar invites us to think more seriously about what happens almost every time we touch one of our devices and turn it on or swipe or click. From the technologies at our fingertips to the vastly larger networks of politics and language that they operate and represent, The Switch provides a fascinating cultural history of how we have made the modern world, and been remade in turn, by the simplest of human actions and the connections they enable.""-Mark Goble, author of Beautiful Circuits: Modernism and the Mediated Life   ""A dazzling, beautifully written history of a pervasive but seemingly unremarkable technology of modern life: the binary switch. Jason Puskar’s delightful and important book will fascinate historians of media and technology; it should be required reading for anyone curious about how fantasies of liberal agency are cultivated in the buttons, keyboards, triggers, and toys that make us human.""-Justus Nieland, author of Happiness by Design: Modernism and Media in the Eames Era  


""In this deeply ambitious and sophisticated book, Jason Puskar invites us to think more seriously about what happens almost every time we touch one of our devices and turn it on or swipe or click. From the technologies at our fingertips to the vastly larger networks of politics and language that they operate and represent, The Switch provides a fascinating cultural history of how we have made the modern world, and been remade in turn, by the simplest of human actions and the connections they enable.""—Mark Goble, author of Beautiful Circuits: Modernism and the Mediated Life   ""A dazzling, beautifully written history of a pervasive but seemingly unremarkable technology of modern life: the binary switch. Jason Puskar’s delightful and important book will fascinate historians of media and technology; it should be required reading for anyone curious about how fantasies of liberal agency are cultivated in the buttons, keyboards, triggers, and toys that make us human.""—Justus Nieland, author of Happiness by Design: Modernism and Media in the Eames Era  


Author Information

Jason Puskar is professor of English at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. He is author of Accident Society: Fiction, Collectivity, and the Production of Chance.

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Latest Reading Guide

NOV RG 20252

 

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