The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age - Softcover

Stone, Allucquere Rosanne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0262691892 ISBN 13: 9780262691895

Publisher: Mit Pr, 1996

Synopsis

In this witty, far-reaching, and utterly original work, Allucquère Rosanne Stone examines the myriad ways modern technology is challenging traditional notions of gender identity.

Face-to-face meetings, and even telephone conversations, involuntarily reveal crucial aspects of identity such as gender, age, and race. However, these bits of identity are completely masked by computer-mediated communications; all that is revealed is what we choose to reveal―and then only if we choose to tell the truth. The rise of computer-mediated communications is giving people the means to try on alternative personae―in a sense, to reinvent themselves―which, as Stone compellingly argues, has both positive and potentially destructive implications.

Not a traditional text but rather a series of intellectual provocations, the book moves between fascinating accounts of the modern interface of technology and desire: from busy cyberlabs to the electronic solitude of the Internet, from phone sex to "virtual cross-dressers," and from the trial of a man accused of having raped a woman by seducing one of her multiple personalities to the Vampire Lestat.

Throughout, Stone wrestles with the question of how best to convey a complex description of a culture whose chief activity is complex description. Writing eloquently of creating a "text that breaks rules," serving as a "sampler of possible choices," she employs elements from a wide range of disciplines and genres, including cultural and critical theory, social sciences, pulp journalism, science fiction, and personal memoirs.

Each chapter of the book can be read as a kind of performance piece, with its own individual voice and structure. In the final chapter, Stone threads the various narratives together, holding them in productive tension rather than attempting to collapse them into a single unifying statement: a process that best reflects the confused, ambiguous, and sometimes contradictory state of gender relations at the close of the mechanical age.

About this title

Review:

An engrossing and complex exploration of the effects of telecommunications technologies on gender relations and identity. Goes far beyond the usual obvious assertions and cliches.

From the Back Cover:

Allucquere Rosanne Stone examines the interface of technology and desire: from busy cyberlabs to the electronic solitude of the Internet, from "virtual cross-dressers" to the trial of a man having raped a woman by seducing one of her multiple personalities. Writing eloquently of creating a "text that breaks rules", Stone employs elements from a wide range of disciplines and genres, including cultural and critical theory, social sciences, pulp journalism, science fiction, and personal memoir.

About this edition

• Publisher: Mit Pr
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0262691892
• ISBN 13: 9780262691895
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224