Understanding Flusser, Understanding Modernism: (Understanding Philosophy, Understanding Modernism)

The Czech-Brazilian philosopher Vilém Flusser (1920–1991) has been recognized as a decisive past master in the emergence of contemporary media theory and media archeology. His work engages and also rethinks several mythologies of modernity, devising new methodologies, experimental literary practices, and expanded hermeneutics that trouble traditional practices of literary/literate knowledge, shared experience, reception, and communication. Working within an expanded concept of modernism, Flusser presciently noted the power inherent in algorithmic information apparatuses to reshape our fundamental conceptions of culture and history. In an increasingly technological world, Flusser's form of experimental theory-fiction pits philosophy against cybernetics as it forces the category of “the human” to confront the inhuman world of animals and machines. The contributors to Understanding Flusser, Understanding Modernism engage with the multiplicity of Flusser’s thought as they provide a general analysis of his work, engage in comparative readings with other philosophers, and offer expanded conceptualizations of modernism. The final section of the volume includes an extended glossary clarifying the playful terminology used by Flusser, which will be a valuable resource for experts and students alike.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations Contributors Acknowledgments Introduction Aaron Jaffe, Florida State University, USA, Rodrigo Martini, University of Georgia, USA, Michael F. Miller, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands PART I: Processing Flusser 1. Does AI Have a Future? Rita Raley, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA, and Russell Samolsky, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA 2. Design/Shape Anke Finger, University of Connecticut, USA 3. Flusser in Open Circuits: The Dialogic Capacity of Video Images Daniel Irrgang, Weizenbaum-Institute, Berlin, Germany 4. Flusser and Ars Electronica: Between and Beyond Cybernetics Daniel Raschke, Florida State University, USA 5. Flusser in the Light of Radiation Clint Wilson III, Rice University, USA 6. Games and Play: On Being Human in the Universe of Technical Images Nancy Roth, Independent Scholar, USA 7. Flusser’s Philosophical Backgrounds Martha Schwendener, New York University, USA 8. Flusser’s Quasi-Phenomenology Andreas Max Ströhl, Goethe Institute, North America 9. Migrants, Flâneurs, Critics: Flusserian Irony and the Genealogy of Modern Cynicism Alexander B. Adkins, San Jacinto College, USA 10. Vampyroteuthis infernalis as Media Theory Geoffrey Winthrop-Young, University of British Columbia, Canada 11. Posthistory Today: Historical Time and Virality after Flusser Charles M. Tung, Seattle University, USA PART II: Flusser’s Expanded Modernism 12. Demonologies Laurence A. Rickels, European Graduate School Saas-Fee, Switzerland 13. An Intersubjective Style Frances McDonald, University of Louisville, USA 14. “Naked Little Spasms of the Self”: In Search of an Authentic Gesture in Posthistorical Times Dominic Pettman, The New School, USA 15. The ‘Pataphysical Span: Jarry and Flusser Judith Roof, Rice University, USA 16. Flusser’s New Weird Keith Leslie Johnson, The College of William and Mary, USA 17. A Philosophy of Refraction: Flusser’s Speculative Biology and the Study of Paramedia David Bering-Porter, The New School, USA 18. Everything Quantizes Kate Brideau, New York University, USA 19. Religious Telematics and the Archives of Memory K. Merinda Simmons, University of Alabama, USA 20. The Challenge of Flusser: Latinidad and Its Others John Ribó, Florida State University, USA 21. On Synthesis and Synthetic Reality: Post/Modernism in Flusser’s Thinking Rainer Guldin, Università della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, Switzerland 22. Fascism, Iconoclasm, and the Global Village Guy Stevenson, Goldsmiths and Queen Mary Colleges, University of London, UK 23. The Future of Writing David Golumbia, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA 24. Flusser’s Linguistic Briefcase Tatjana Soldat-Jaffe, Florida State University, USA 25. The Depressed Person and the Vampire Squid: Sonic Gestures in the Work of Flusser and David Foster Wallace Edward Comentale, Indiana University, USA 26. Cannibalistic Animals: Posthuman Natures in Flusser and Benjamin Erick Felinto, State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), Brazil 27. Flusser’s New World Aaron Jaffe, Florida State University, USA PART III: Flusser’s Toolkit 28. Anti-Apparatus Melody Jue, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA 29. Apparatus Blake Stricklin, University of Houston, Victoria, USA 30. Automation Seb Franklin, King's College London, UK 31. Cybernetics Heather A. Love, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada 32. Dasein’s Design Chris Michaels. Florida State University, USA 33. Ecology Derek Woods, University of British Columbia, Canada 34. Ethics Annie Lowe, Rice University, USA 35. Etymology Andrew Battaglia, Rice University, USA 36. Surface and Simulation Tom Tooley, Valencia College, USA 37. Technical Image Anaïs Nony, University College Cork, Ireland 38. Writing Andrew Pilsch, Texas A&M University, USA 39. Zetetic Maneuvers: Stalking the Continuum Adelheid Mers, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, USA Epilogue: Between Languages and Without Discipline: A 20th Century Intellect Drafted for the 21st Siegfried Zielinski, European Graduate School Saas-Fee, Switzerland, translated from the German by Daniel Raschke, Florida State University, USA

About the Author :
Aaron Jaffe is Frances Cushing Ervin Professor of American Literature at Florida State University, USA. He is the author or editor of six previous books, including The Way Things Go: An Essay on the Matter of Second Modernism (2014). Michael F. Miller is Visiting Lecturer in the Department of English Language and Culture at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. He has published essays on contemporary literature, media theory, digital culture, and politics. Rodrigo Martini is Lecturer in English at the University of Georgia, USA.

Review :
Understanding Flusser, Understanding Modernism is a much-needed current toward reiterating a Flusserian significance in the contemporary philosophical discourses. … definitely a keystone for a scholar who desires to deepen the arc of disciplined and non-disciplined research. An extraordinary collection of scholars is here assembled to provide the Jonny-come-lately Anglophone world with a critical resource for our heterochronic times. After the pandemic, what better preparation for the coming storm than this exceptionally lively and brilliantly curated collection of essays and interventions on ‘the event of Flusser’—an event whose retrofuturist moment is upon us. Situated at the sweet spot between cybernetics and existentialism, media theory and ‘weird’ thought, Flusser’s migratory work left a thousand tendrils of unfulfilled potential behind; here that mass of theoretic implication begins to twitch, to move, to speak … It’s alive! Vilém Flusser’s work becomes more urgent with every new decade we enter in the twenty-first century. This brilliantly constructed volume takes the eclecticism of his oeuvre seriously, and by engaging an outstanding group of his most significant interlocutors as well as emerging voices at the nexus of modernism, media studies, and theory after humanism, Understanding Flusser, Understanding Modernism appears at the moment in which Flusser’s prescience is making itself known across disciplines. This is an essential volume for anyone reading Flusser today, which should really be everyone. An essential guide for both the novice and the expert, this wide-ranging collection traces the uniquely cosmopolitan itinerary of Flusser’s life and work, introducing the major concepts while pushing his thought in new directions. As this volume shows, “media theory” is far too tidy a term for this gargantuan thinker, an event called “Flusser” that we’re just beginning to process. Flusser hasn’t left the building; he hasn’t even arrived yet.