American Technological Sublime

American Technological Sublime
Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
Total Pages : 388
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0262640341
ISBN-13 : 9780262640343
Rating : 4/5 (41 Downloads)

Book Synopsis American Technological Sublime by : David E. Nye

Download or read book American Technological Sublime written by David E. Nye and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1996-02-28 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American Technological Sublime continues the exploration of the social construction of technology that David Nye began in his award-winning book Electrifying America. Here Nye examines the continuing appeal of the "technological sublime" (a term coined by Perry Miller) as a key to the nation's history, using as examples the natural sites, architectural forms, and technological achievements that ordinary people have valued intensely. Technology has long played a central role in the formation of Americans' sense of selfhood. From the first canal systems through the moon landing, Americans have, for better or worse, derived unity from the common feeling of awe inspired by large-scale applications of technological prowess. American Technological Sublime continues the exploration of the social construction of technology that David Nye began in his award-winning book Electrifying America. Here Nye examines the continuing appeal of the "technological sublime" (a term coined by Perry Miller) as a key to the nation's history, using as examples the natural sites, architectural forms, and technological achievements that ordinary people have valued intensely. American Technological Sublime is a study of the politics of perception in industrial society. Arranged chronologically, it suggests that the sublime itself has a history - that sublime experiences are emotional configurations that emerge from new social and technological conditions, and that each new configuration to some extent undermines and displaces the older versions. After giving a short history of the sublime as an aesthetic category, Nye describes the reemergence and democratization of the concept in the early nineteenth century as an expression of the American sense of specialness. What has filled the American public with wonder, awe, even terror? David Nye selects the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, the Erie Canal, the first transcontinental railroad, Eads Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge, the major international expositions, the Hudson-Fulton Celebration of 1909, the Empire State Building, and Boulder Dam. He then looks at the atom bomb tests and the Apollo mission as examples of the increasing ambivalence of the technological sublime in the postwar world. The festivities surrounding the rededication of the Statue of Liberty in 1986 become a touchstone reflecting the transformation of the American experience of the sublime over two centuries. Nye concludes with a vision of the modern-day "consumer sublime" as manifested in the fantasy world of Las Vegas.


American Technological Sublime Related Books

American Technological Sublime
Language: en
Pages: 388
Authors: David E. Nye
Categories: Technology & Engineering
Type: BOOK - Published: 1996-02-28 - Publisher: MIT Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

American Technological Sublime continues the exploration of the social construction of technology that David Nye began in his award-winning book Electrifying Am
American Technological Sublime
Language: en
Pages: 0
Authors: David E. Nye
Categories: Sublime, The
Type: BOOK - Published: 1994 - Publisher:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

An historical study of the social construction of American technology from 1820 to the present.
American Technological Sublime
Language: en
Pages: 385
Authors: David E. Nye
Categories: Technology & Engineering
Type: BOOK - Published: 1996-02-28 - Publisher: MIT Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

American Technological Sublime continues the exploration of the social construction of technology that David Nye began in his award-winning book Electrifying Am
Postmodern Sublime
Language: en
Pages: 256
Authors: Joseph Tabbi
Categories: Literary Criticism
Type: BOOK - Published: 2018-05-31 - Publisher: Cornell University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Focusing on works by Norman Mailer, Thomas Pynchon, Joseph McElroy, and Don DeLillo, Joseph Tabbi finds that a simultaneous attraction to and repulsion from tec
America as Second Creation
Language: en
Pages: 384
Authors: David E. Nye
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2004-09-17 - Publisher: MIT Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

An exploration of the dialogue that emerged after 1776 between different visions of what it meant to use new technologies to transform the land. After 1776, the