Mirror for man

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Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort

**A sourcebook of historical written texts, video documentation, and working programs that form the foundation of new media.** This reader collects the texts, videos, and computer programs—many of them now almost impossible to find—that chronicle the history and form the foundation of the still-emerging field of new media. General introductions by Janet Murray and Lev Manovich, along with short introductions to each of the texts, place the works in their historical context and explain their significance. The texts were originally published between World War II—when digital computing, cybernetic feedback, and early notions of hypertext and the Internet first appeared—and the emergence of the World Wide Web—when they entered the mainstream of public life. The texts are by computer scientists, artists, architects, literary writers, interface designers, cultural critics, and individuals working across disciplines. The contributors include (chronologically) Jorge Luis Borges, Vannevar Bush, Alan Turing, Ivan Sutherland, William S. Burroughs, Ted Nelson, Italo Calvino, Marshall McLuhan, Jean Baudrillard, Nicholas Negroponte, Alan Kay, Bill Viola, Sherry Turkle, Richard Stallman, Brenda Laurel, Langdon Winner, Robert Coover, and Tim Berners-Lee. The CD accompanying the book contains examples of early games, digital art, independent literary efforts, software created at universities, and home-computer commercial software. Also on the CD is digitized video, documenting new media programs and artwork for which no operational version exists. One example is a video record of Douglas Engelbart's first presentation of the mouse, word processor, hyperlink, computer-supported cooperative work, video conferencing, and the dividing up of the screen we now call non-overlapping windows; another is documentation of Lynn Hershman's Lorna, the first interactive video art installation.

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John Michael Greer

"As peak oil reshapes the terrain of our future, John Michael Greer offers an inspiring vision of cultural evolution rooted in environmental science. For anyone concerned about peak oil and the future of industrial society, this book is an essential guide to the deep patterns of change wracking the world today, and a practical toolkit for building a sustainable future."--Jacket.

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John H. Bodley. --

"Can the earth satisfy, on a sustained basis, the basic needs of more than 6 billion people? How do the problems of exploitation, injustice, and environmental degradation relate to increases in the scale and complexity of societies, economies, and the concentration of wealth? What are the costs and benefits of a global commercial culture? The fourth edition of John H. Bodley's Anthropology and Contemporary Human Problems examines the fundamental problem of modern civilization--hunger, poverty, overconsumption, and conflict--from a holistic, anthropological viewpoint. The author makes clear and stimulating use of prehistoric and ethnographic research to explain the context of contemporary human concerns, and uses culture scale as a means for comparing solutions to these problems. Ultimately, the text challenges our assumptions about modern civilization and the superiority of complex societies, as it looks toward future possibilities for adaptation."--Back cover.

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Sonia Ryang

"Japan and National Anthropology is a study which challenges the conventional view of Japanese studies in general and Anglophone anthropological writings on Japan in particular. Sonia Ryang explores the process by which the post-war anthropology of Japan has come to be dominated by certain conceptual and methodological approaches and exposes the extent to which this process has occluded our view of Japan." "In an attempt to move away from theoretical trends which identify Japanese cultural boundaries with Japan's nation-state boundaries, consequentially portraying the country as racially homogeneous and culturally unique, Ryang examines: how wartime enemy studies shaped the direction of post-war anthropology; the historical effects and significance of Chrysanthemum and the Sword; key texts from the anthropology enquiry that started within the US military occupation of Japan (1945-1952); Japanese kinship and its relationship to the study of Japan as a nation; and the origins and development of the studies of the Japanese self." "This book will be welcomed by all students of Japanese anthropology and Japanese history. Its historical breadth and criticism of existing approaches provide a fresh and reasoned insight into the development and future of anthropology of Japan."--BOOK JACKET.