American gadgets: cybernetics, consumer electronics, and twentieth-century us fiction

Challenging the argument that liberal humanism faces extinction in the face of ubiquitous digital technologies, my dissertation analyzes the ways in which consumer electronics reinscribe the human subject as a privileged category in the information age. Through spaces like the Matrix, Windows 7, or even the single row of play controls on a cassette deck, gadgets preserve the concept of human autonomy by yoking personal entertainment with technical knowledge, agency, citizenship, and individuality. In American postwar fiction and film, gadgets serve powerful functions that allow authors such as Thomas Pynchon, William S. Burroughs, Neal Stephenson, Pat Cadigan, and Richard Powers to explore the complexities of humankind’s responses to technological and digital innovation

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2011

Author dc:creator

• Simeone, Michael P.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Markley, Robert
• Nelson, Cary
• Schaffner, Spencer W.
• Basu, Anustup
• Mandell, Laura

• cybernetics
• posthumanism
• american literature
• electronics
• gadgets
• cyberpunk
• media studies
• new media
• digital humanities
• postwar literature
• informatics

Statement dc:rights

• copyright 2011 Michael Simeone

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/24244

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/24244