Sacred Channels: The Archaic Illusion of Communication

Erich Hörl's Sacred Channels explores the history of communication theory and the cultural imaginary through the notions of the sacred and the primitive, offering insight into the shared ground of anthropology and media theory. It presents an archeology of the philosophy of technology that underpins contemporary culture and reads ethnological disciplines in the context of media cultural questions.

\n Format: Paperback / softback
\n Length: 344 pages
\n Publication date: 01 October 2018
\n Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
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Erich Hörl's Sacred Channels is a groundbreaking exploration of the history of communication theory and the cultural imaginary of communication, as seen through the lens of the sacred and the primitive. Hörl delves into the common ground between anthropology and media theory in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, offering a comprehensive archeology of the philosophy of technology that underpins contemporary culture. This unique and pioneering project centers on the ethnological disciplines and their phantasmatic imaginations of a prealphabetical realm of the sacred and the primitive, yet interprets them within the context of media cultural questions as epistemic unconscious and as projections of the emerging postalphabetical condition. Drawing inspiration from the works of Friedrich Kittler, Hörl's understanding of cybernetics in the post-World War II interdisciplinary field informs a rich analysis that is of immense interest to media scholars and anyone seeking to understand the historical and theoretical foundations of the humanities in the age of technical media.

Erich Hörl's Sacred Channels is a groundbreaking exploration of the history of communication theory and the cultural imaginary of communication, as seen through the lens of the sacred and the primitive. Hörl delves into the common ground between anthropology and media theory in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, offering a comprehensive archeology of the philosophy of technology that underpins contemporary culture. This unique and pioneering project centers on the ethnological disciplines and their phantasmatic imaginations of a prealphabetical realm of the sacred and the primitive, yet interprets them within the context of media cultural questions as epistemic unconscious and as projections of the emerging postalphabetical condition. Drawing inspiration from the works of Friedrich Kittler, Hörl's understanding of cybernetics in the post-World War II interdisciplinary field informs a rich analysis that is of immense interest to media scholars and anyone seeking to understand the historical and theoretical foundations of the humanities in the age of technical media.

\n Weight: 554g\n
Dimension: 158 x 234 x 23 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9789089647702\n
Edition number: 0\n