Narratives of Technology

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

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2. The Reality of Technology

   • J. M. van der Laan

   Pages 1-20

3. Narrative and Myth

   • J. M. van der Laan

   Pages 21-40

4. The Dominant Narrative

   • J. M. van der Laan

   Pages 41-73

5. A Counter-Narrative

   • J. M. van der Laan

   Pages 75-110

6. Literary Narratives

   • J. M. van der Laan

   Pages 111-150

7. Faust and Technological Fulfillment

   • J. M. van der Laan

   Pages 151-168

8. Frankenstein and Technological Failure

   • J. M. van der Laan

   Pages 169-185

9. Movies, Machines, and Human Beings

   • J. M. van der Laan

   Pages 187-202

10. Advertising Technology

    • J. M. van der Laan

    Pages 203-219

11. The Transformation of Narrative

    • J. M. van der Laan

    Pages 221-236

12. Back Matter

    Pages 237-278

    PDF

This book documents and investigates the stories we have told and continue to tell about technology-now the dominant feature of our civilization-in fiction, non-fiction, film, and advertising. It answers important questions about the meanings people ascribe to technology, the hopes and fears we express in the different narratives, the effect of those narratives upon us, and the new forms of myth those narratives represent. Narratives of Technology offers an approach grounded in the humanities, adding another perspective to that of social scientists and technologists.  

• Narrative
• Counter-narrative
• Technological idealism
• Machine-generated
• technological myth
• Technological enthusiasm

• Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, Illinois State University, Normal, USA

  J. M. van der Laan

J. M. van der Laan is Professor of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Illinois State University, USA.  His various publications address a wide range of topics such as printing in the first hundred years after Gutenberg, eighteenth-century essays, nineteenth-century science fiction, and technology in contemporary culture and society.    

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