PRELUDE TO
AN INTEGRAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
SECOND QUADRANT: THE EVOLUTION OF THE ORGANISM
(The individual organism as an exterior object,
i.e. our brain and organism and its exteriorisation
in technology and communication)
CONTENTS
2.1 organisation by historical epochs / phases
- TECHNOLOGY IN GENERAL
- WRITING
- PRINTING
- INTERNET AND THE WEB
- POSTHUMAN TECHNOLOGIES
- CRITIQUES OF TECHNOLOGY AND TECHNOLOGICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
subtopic: TECHNOLOGY AND SPIRITUALITY
2.2 organisation by topic
- ANIMALITY
- THE BODY
- THE BRAIN
- THE COSMOS
- LANGUAGE/SEMIOTICS
- THE OBJECT AS SUCH
- 2.1 organisation by historical epochs / phases
- TECHNOLOGY IN GENERAL
- André Leroi-Gouran. "Milieu et technique", 1945.
(livre anthropologique sur l'évolution des techniques à travers les temps)
- McLuhan, M. (1994). Understanding media: the extensions of Man. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
MIT Press.
- Lewis Mumford. Technics and Civilisation. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1934.
(a classic foundational work on the subject - "his works on technology and machinism, from the 30s, are still stunning in their
actuality and perceptiveness" - rec Soderberg))
- WRITING
Jack Goody, The Logic of Writing and the Organization of Society,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
- Jack Goody, The Power of the Written Tradition, Washington:
Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000.
- Shlain, Leonard, The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image,
Viking, 1998
Argues that the alphabet promoted the left-masculine brain functions.
- PRINTING
- Walter J. Ong. Orality and Literacy: the Technologizing of the World, 1982
- E.A. Havelock. Origins of Western Literacy, 1976.
(the two books above are about how the print revolution changed the very forms of human consciousness)
- Elizabeth L. Eisenstein The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, Volumes I and II
1979
- Eisenstein, E. L. (1993). The printing revolution in early modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
- McLuhan, M. (1962). The Gutenberg galaxy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
- Chartier, Roger Les usages de l'imprimé du 15ème au 19ème siècle Fayard
- The Gutenberg Revolution. John Man Review, 312pp
("without Gutenberg and printing, there would have been no Reformation. A third of all books published in Germany between
1518 and 1525 were by Martin Luther - of the million volumes a year being turned out by German printing presses, more than
300,000 were by Luther. Bestselling author indeed. A contemporary British author would have to sell 300 million copies a year
to equal that - a feat way beyond even the Archers and Jackie Collinses. There is a strong case for saying that the Reformation
was the first historical result of the invention of printing. Later consequences were nationalism, the industrial revolution, the
Newtonian conception of the universe, modern (that is, post-Descartes) philosophy, perspective in art, the notion of causality in
the sciences, narrative chronology in literature, individual psychology, and perhaps even modern phenomena as diverse as
Henry Ford and the assembly line on the one hand, and Freud and psychoanalysis on the other.")
- INTERNET, THE WEB and THE NETWORKS
- Marchand, Philip, (1946-) Marshall McLuhan : the medium and the
messenger : a biography / Philip Marchand. Vintage Canada, [1998
(bio of the major new media philosopher)
- Works by Mark Poster
(Recent books of his are: 1)The Mode of Information (1990) ;2) The Second Media Age (1995) ; 3) What's the Matter with the
Internet? (2001).
Arguing that the Internet demands a social and cultural theory appropriate to the specific qualities of cyberspace, Poster
reformulates the ideas of thinkers associated with our understanding of postmodern culture and the media (including Foucault,
Deleuze, Heidegger, Baudrillard, and Derrida) to account for and illuminate the virtual world, paying particular attention to its
political dimensions and the nature of identity. In this innovative analysis, Poster acknowledges that although the colonization of
the Internet by corporations and governments does threaten to retard its capacity to bring about genuine change, the new
medium is still capable of transforming both contemporary social practices and the way we see the world and ourselves.
Recommended Greg Wilpert)
- Danielle Cliche ed., Cultural Ecology: the changing dynamics of communications London,
International Institute of Communications, 1997.
("Perhaps the best book out on communication futures. Essays by Kevin Robbins in which he deconstructs the futuristic claims
of Bill Gates and Nicholas Negroponte (the net will end class divisions and reduce if not eliminate distance, physical and social)
and by Cees J. Hamelin in which he argues that a global conversations of cultures is needed that goes beyond the hype of the
information society. Cultural pluralism is the vision and the challenge of the future, not an information society. Kostas Gouliamos
argues that the new technologies continue the hegemony of corporatism, reducing civil and national democracy and Gary Marx
investigates if the new information technologies are a threat to privacy. Forget the hundreds of books out on the information
society, this is the one to get." - rec Sohail Inatullah)
- The Gifts of Athena . Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy by Joel Mokyr Princeton
University Press Due/Published December 2002, 336 pages, cloth
ISBN 0691094837
("The growth of technological and scientific knowledge in the past two centuries has been the overriding dynamic element in the
economic and social history of the world. Its result is now often called the knowledge economy. But what are the historical
origins of this revolution and what have been its mechanisms? In The Gifts of Athena, Joel Mokyr constructs an original
framework to analyze the concept of "useful" knowledge. He argues that the growth explosion in the modern West in the past
two centuries was driven not just by the appearance of new technological ideas but also by the improved access to these ideas
in society at large--as made possible by social networks comprising universities, publishers, professional sciences, and kindred
institutions. Through a wealth of historical evidence set in clear and lively prose, he shows that changes in the intellectual and
social environment and the institutional background in which knowledge was generated and disseminated brought about the
Industrial Revolution, followed by sustained economic growth and continuing technological change. Mokyr draws a link between
intellectual forces such as the European enlightenment and subsequent economic changes of the nineteenth century, and
follows their development into the twentieth century. He further explores some of the key implications of the knowledge
revolution. Among these is the rise and fall of the "factory system" as an organizing principle of modern economic organization.
He analyzes the impact of this revolution on information technology and communications as well as on the public's state of
health and the structure of households. By examining the social and political roots of resistance to new knowledge, Mokyr also
links growth in knowledge to political economy and connects the economic history of technology to the New Institutional
Economics. The Gifts of Athena provides crucial insights into a matter of fundamental concern to a range of disciplines including
economics, economic history, political economy, the history of technology, and the history of science" - frontlist)
- Lawrence Lessig. 1) Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. Basic Books, 1999. 2) The War of
Ideas
(on information regulation and the struggles around internet infrastructure)
- The Emergence of Noopolitik. By John Arquila and David Ronfeldt. Rand Corporation.
- Traité du tout-monde. By Edouard Glissant. 1997
("Edouard Glissant, a 'leading postcolonial intellectual' who has written a treatise examining how the internet strengthens or
weakens the domination of the First World over the Third World. In other words: how does it function as a tool for power. This is
of course relevant as both sides use networked technology as an important tool in their arsenal." - Mots Pluriel)
- Cyber-Marx, Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High-Technology Capitalism. Nick Dyer-Witheford.
Univ of Illinois Pr., 1999
("comprehensive, well-researched overview on contemporary Marxist responses tot he Information Age" - rec Soderberg)
- Contextes de l'art numerique. Jean-Pierre Balpe. Hermes, 2000.
("ouvrage remarquable sur les nouvelles conditions de la semiose (?) dans la cyberculture" - Multitudes)
extra: understanding 'networks'
- Albert-Laszlo Barabasi. Linked: The New Science of Networks.
("Notre Dame Professor Barabasi digs deep into the world of links on the Web, social networks,
cellular connections, and other fields. He returns with a clear picture of how these connections
operate and how they're reshaping our lives." - rec 21C Magazine.com. "Networks hide wonderful
order and are described by rather rigid evolutionary laws")
- The Rise of the Network Society (3 volumes). By Manuel Castells. Blackwell, 1996. (rec
Soderbergh)
- Network Nation , by Murray Turoff and Roxanne Hiltz (rec George Por)
- Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy RAND, 2001
(major theorists of the new network logics)
- TRANSHUMAN TECHNOLOGIES
- Cloning the Buddha: the moral impact of biotechnology. Quest Books, 1999.
- Robot. Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind. Hans Moravec. Oxford University Press, 1998
- Ray Kurzweil, the age of spiritual machines
- Robert Aunger. The Widening Gyre: How Technology Will Evolve in the Post-Human Era.
("As our control over the environment increases, truly powerful means of engineering genes, artificial minds and the very
constituents of matter itself (at the nano-scale) will arise. It has even been suggested that some of these artifacts are likely to
come "alive" (start replicating independently) or "wake up" (develop awareness) in the future. I therefore suggest we urgently
need to develop a theoretical framework that can encompass the multifarious ramifications of technology in modern life. The
central fact we need to explain is how technology can become increasingly complex -- going from simple tool manufacture to
globe-girdling, vertically-integrated corporate empires. Luckily, recent evolutionary theorizing about major transitions leading to
increased complexity -- such as the leap from single to multi-cellular organisms -- is perfectly suited to assess the real dangers
of new technologies. I therefore use this framework, which I call Meta-Evolution (because it's about the evolution of evolution),
to investigate our likely future, based on a reexamination of past trends in technological development. ")
- Michio Kaku, Visions: How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st Century and Beyond. Oxford,
Oxford University Press, 1998.
("Parts of it are typical hyper upbeat. But some chapters are stunning. Especially noteworthy is the chapter, "Toward a
Planetary Civilization," in particular the distinction between Type 0, 1, 2 and 3 civilizations (based on the type and scale of
energy used). Definitely worth reading, bordering on brilliant macrohistory. " - rec. Sohail Inatullah)
- Eric Drexler, Engines of Change. New York, Anchor Press, 1986.
("Gives insight into the range of dramatic new nano-technologies that will forever transform economics." Sohail Inatullah)
- Artificial life Steven Levy
("Un récit journalistique passionnant sur la vie artificielle . bien au delà de l'anecdotique simple, ce livre constitue la meilleure
introduction au sujet" - remi sussan)
- CRITIQUES OF TECHNOLOGY AND TECHNOLOGICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
- Daniel Quinn in _Ishmael
- David Abram's _Spell of the Sensuous
- Derrick Jensen's _A Language Older Than Words
(three books, all of which discuss overthrowing the "mother culture" of the modern scientific / materialistic spirit in various ways.
Though, Quinn at times seems to
desire "the return of a lost world." - forgotten correspondent)
- Henri David Thoreau. Walden
("over individu en maatschappij, individu en natuur - technologie - boek is meer dan honderd jaar oud, maar is toch heel herkenbaar wanneer het
gaat over rat race, materialisme, de dwaasheid van de wereld die sneller moet gemaakt worden, vB. er komt telegraaf, oké, die communicatie gaat
sneller, maar belangrijker is: WAAROVER praten mensen met mekaar? is zeer toepasselijk op gsm, e-mail e.a." rec Jan Hertoghs)
- Jerry Mander. In the Absence of the Sacred. 1992. (Whole Earth)
- Langdon Winner. Autonomous Technology. 1977. (whole earth)
- Lewis Mumford. The Myth of the Machine. 1966. (whole earth)
- Buckminster Fuller. Critical Path. St. Martin's Press. New York. 1981
("Buckminster Fuller was one of the 20th century's great proponents of humanity's cosmically endowed evolutionary potential.
In Critical Path he writes: "Humanity is moving ever deeper into crisis-a crisis without precedent." "First, it is a crisis brought
about by cosmic evolution irrevocably intent upon completely transforming omnidisintegrated humanity from a complex of
around-the-world, remotely-deployed-from-one-another, differently colored, differently credoed, differently cultured, differently
communicating, and differently competing entities into a completely integrated, comprehensively interconsiderate, harmonious
whole." "Second, we are in an unprecedented crisis because cosmic evolution is also irrevocably intent upon making
omni-integrated humanity omnisuccessful, able to live sustainingly at an unprecedentedly higher standard of living for all
Earthians than has ever been experienced by any; able to live entirely within its cosmic-energy income instead of spending its
cosmic energy savings account (i.e., the fossil fuels) or spending its cosmic-capital plant and equipment account (i.e., atomic
energy)-the atoms with which our Spaceship Earth and its biosphere are structured and equipped-a spending folly no less
illogical than burning your house-and-home to keep the family warm on an unprecedentedly cold midwinter night. "Humanity's
cosmic-energy income account consists entirely of our gravity- and star (99 percent Sun)-distributed cosmic dividends of
waterpower, tidal power, wavepower, windpower, vegetation-produced alcohols, methane gas, vulcanism, and so on.
Humanity's present rate of total energy consumption amounts to only one four-millionth of one percent of the rate of its energy
income. "...Ninety-nine percent of humanity does not know that we have the option to 'make it' economically on this planet and
in the Universe. We do." )
- Heidegger THE QUESTION CONCERNING TECHNOLOGY (rec Kenneth Smith)
- Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality, New York: Harper and Row, 1973.
- More recommendations from Johan Soderbergh, Swedish author of an essay "Copyleft/copyright"
which appeared in First Monday.
("Its a mighty task that you have undertaken, to write a readers digest of all literature on technology! From a brief glance at the
list, it seems that you have gathered some disparate sources on the subject. To me the most important aspect when discussing
technology is to identify that technology, far from being neutral, is part of the social power-relations that shapes it. Lessig is in
my opinion the one who, addressing an audience that has not confronted this thought before, demonstrates the point most
convincing. From then on, I would be inclined to ask, how? David Noble in Digital Diplomacy Mill shows the
continuum of skills being transferred from humans to machines/digits. (I have not read the book by him that is in the list). For
surveillance, David Lyons The Electronic Eye: The Rise of the Surveillance Society. (London: Polity
Press.1994) is the most well-balanced account I have read on the subject. On critically examining the information age,
Vincent Mosco is a prominent name (loads of books by him). Currently I'm half-way through Francois Fortiers book
'Virtuality Check'. I cant say anything final about it as yet, it is well written and researched but has not deviated from the
others' point of views so far. The difficulty is to find an author that simultaneously pays attention to the strength of
counter-hegemonic forces in recapturing (and shaping) technology. There were some references in Cyber-Marxism that I have
not access to now but that might be worth pursuing.")
subtopic: TECHNOLOGY AND SPIRITUALITY
- The Religion of Technology. David Noble.
- Techngnosis. Erik Davis.
- CyberGrace. Jennifer Cobb.
- The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace. Margaret Wertheim.
(The first four books where used in the preparation of the TechnoCalyps documentary and are all well worth reading)
- God and the Chip. Religion and the Culture of Technology. William A. Stahl. Wilfrid Laurier Univ.
Press.
("interdisciplinary critique of the mysticism associated with technology)
- Michael Heim's book The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993:
82-108
- 2.2 organisation by topic
- ANIMALITY
- Origins Reconsidered: in search of what makes us human. Richard Leakey and robert Lewin.
Doubleday, 1992.
- 1.L'ouvert, De l'homme et de l'animal, Giorgio Agamben, Rivages, 2002
- 2. La part animale de l'homme, Esquisse d'une théorie du mythe et du chamanisme, Michel
Boccara, Anthropos, 2002
(Ces deux livres renouvellent la question de nos rapport avec l'animalité. Leurs points de vue me semblent éclairer et
compléter ce que j'ai pu avancer sur le rôle du cerveau dans l'ouverture au non-biologique (la distanciation). Nous verrons
qu'alors que pour Giorgio Agamben, l'homme est tout entier dans son effort de différenciation de l'animalité (L'homme est un
animal qui "se reconnaît ne pas l'être" 46), pour Michel Boccara, et sans contredire à ce processus d'arrachement au monde
animal, notre humanité y reste profondément ancrée malgré tout, à travers le mythe ou le chant comme vécus qui nous
renvoient au temps jadis où nous étions des animaux comme les autres, avant l'apparition d'un langage humain qui nous a
rendu sourd au langage des oiseaux comme à la plupart de nos instincts. Nous verrons qu'il faut y voir le retour dans le
langage de notre animalité perdue par le langage. - Jean Zin)
- Dominique Lestel. Les origines de la culture. Flammarion 2002
("Ceci conforte les points de vue de nombreux éthologues et socio-philosophes, notamment en France Frédéric Joulian et
Dominique Lestel (dont nous commenterons prochainement dans cette revue le livre passionnant Les origines de la culture.
Flammarion 2002) : il n'y a sans doute pas de différences fondamentales entre les sociétés de primates d'aujourd'hui et celles
des premiers hominiens. On étend d'ailleurs la réflexion à d'autres sociétés, celles de certains oiseaux et des cétacés par
exemple. La question reste par contre entière : pourquoi l'évolution des sociétés d'hominiens a-t-elle divergé de celles des
autres espèces animales à cultures voisines ? Deux autres questions secondaires se posent d'ailleurs : qu'étaient les sociétés
animales des ancètres des grands singes il y a 3 millions d'années, et en quoi les sociétés aborigènes actuelles ont-elles
évolué par rapport à celles des premiers hominiens ? - Automates Intelligents)
- Dominique Lestel. L'animalité. Essai sur le statut de l'humain, Hatier 1996.
(L'imposant livre au que vient de publier Dominique Lestel, qu'il qualifie trop modestement d'essai, sur ce qu'il appelle (toujours
trop modestement) "les origines animales de la culture," nous paraît devoir être une base indispensable pour la compréhension
du problème majeur de notre époque : la compatibilité entre la survie d'espèces ayant précédé l'homme depuis des dizaines de
millénaires, celle des diverses formes de l'humanité actuelle et ce qu'il adviendra de ces dernières lorsque, dans moins d'une
cinquantaine d'années peut-être, de nouvelles formes de super-intelligences se seront développées en symbiose entre les
machines et les êtres vivants. Il ne s'agit pas, en d'autres termes, d'un livre n'intéressant que les seuls spécialistes de la vie
animale, mais tous les lecteurs de notre revue. - Automates Intelligents)
- Man's Place in Nature , by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (rec George Por)
- THE BODY
- The Anatomy of Love: the natural history of monogamy, adultery and divorce. By Helen Fisher.
Simon & Schuster, 1992. (sd bib)
- The Future of the Body: explorations into the further evolution of human nature. Jeremy P. Tarcher,
1992.
- SIMONDON, Gilbert. 1964. L'individu et sa genèse physico-biologique (l'individuation à la lumière
des notions de forme et d'information), Paris : PUF, Rééd. J.Millon, coll. Krisis, 1995
- THE BRAIN
- The Triune Brain in Evolution, Paul MacLean (1990) ('fundamental)
-THE COSMOS
- The Embers and the Stars: an inquiry in the moral sense of nature. By Erazim Kohaz. Un of
Chicago Pr, 1993
- The Dramatic Universe. (4 vols.). By John G. Bennett. Coombe Springs Press, 1977.
(post-Gurdieff synthesis)
- Theories of Everything: the quest for the ultimate explanation. By John D. Barrow. Fawcett
Columbine, 1991. (sd bib)
- LANGUAGE/SEMIOTICS
- For a critique of the political economy of the sign. Jean Baudrillard. Telos, 1981.
(sd bib)
- A la recherche de la langue parfaite, Umberto Eco Seuil.1994
("Eco y montre comment on est passé d'une rêverie " hiérogliphique " et polysemique de la " langue adamique " au projet, à
l'époque des lumières, de langues artificielles " rationelles " éliminant toute ambiguité du discours. - remi sussan)
- THE OBJECT AS SUCH
- Revenge of the Crystal - Selected Writings on the Modern Object and its Destiny. Jean Baudrillard.
Pluto Press, 1990.
- SIMONDON, Gilbert. 1989. Du mode d'existence des objets techniques, Paris, Aubier
- HOTTOIS, Gilbert. Simondon et la philosophie de la culture technique, Bruxelles: De Boeck, 1992,
diffusion Belin
