Overview

Delusions of electronic persecution have been a preeminent symptom of psychosis for over two hundred years. In The Technical Delusion Jeffrey Sconce traces the history and continuing proliferation of this phenomenon from its origins in Enlightenment anatomy to our era of global interconnectivity. While psychiatrists have typically dismissed such delusions of electronic control as arbitrary or as mere reflections of modern life, Sconce demonstrates a more complex and interdependent history of electronics, power, and insanity. Drawing on a wide array of psychological case studies, literature, court cases, and popular media, Sconce analyzes the material and social processes that have shaped historical delusions of electronic contamination, implantation, telepathy, surveillance, and immersion. From the age of telegraphy to contemporary digitality, the media emerged within such delusions to become the privileged site for imagining the merger of electronic and political power, serving as a paranoid conduit between the body and the body politic. Looking to the future, Sconce argues that this symptom will become increasingly difficult to isolate, especially as remote and often secretive powers work to further integrate bodies, electronics, and information.

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9781478000761

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Reviews

Sconce has written an important book that lets us tune in to some of the more disturbed and disturbing frequencies on the media-technological spectrum. It will be influential in media studies, and beyond that, in the wider effort to understand what all these devices are doing to us. -- Ben Kafka * Bookforum *

Sconce has written an important book that lets us tune in to some of the more disturbed and disturbing frequencies on the media-technological spectrum. It will be influential in media studies, and beyond that, in the wider effort to understand what all these devices are doing to us. -- Ben Kafka * Bookforum * A robust and multidimensional reminder of the complexity of human consciousness. . . . One impressive feature of the study is how deftly Sconce weaves together case studies, literary source material, court cases, and popular media. -- Amy Ione * Leonardo Reviews * Few recent works of media scholarship could be said to be, even occasionally, laugh-out-loud hilarious. But alongside evenhanded appraisals of delicate subjects such as mental illness and conspiracy theories, Sconce manages to deliver his salient points with comedic flair, frequently punctuating his analyses with unexpected jokes. -- Leo Goldsmith * Film Quarterly * The Technical Delusion is the first comprehensive study of what psychotic visions have contributed to shared perceptions of technology. Sconce has assembled a remarkable array of evidence and stitched it together into a compelling narrative about the imaginary history of technology over the past two centuries. -- Geoff Shullenberger * The New Atlantis *

Few recent works of media scholarship could be said to be, even occasionally, laugh-out-loud hilarious. But alongside evenhanded appraisals of delicate subjects such as mental illness and conspiracy theories, Sconce manages to deliver his salient points with comedic flair, frequently punctuating his analyses with unexpected jokes. -- Leo Goldsmith * Film Quarterly * A robust and multidimensional reminder of the complexity of human consciousness. . . . One impressive feature of the study is how deftly Sconce weaves together case studies, literary source material, court cases, and popular media. -- Amy Ione * Leonardo Reviews * Sconce has written an important book that lets us tune in to some of the more disturbed and disturbing frequencies on the media-technological spectrum. It will be influential in media studies, and beyond that, in the wider effort to understand what all these devices are doing to us. -- Ben Kafka * Bookforum *

Author Information

Jeffrey Sconce is Associate Professor of Screen Cultures at Northwestern University, author of Haunted Media: Electronic Presence from Telegraphy to Television, and editor of Sleaze Artists: Cinema at the Margins of Taste, Style, and Politics, both also published by Duke University Press.

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