Literature—technology—media : towards a new technography

Abstract

The recent medial turn in the humanities has brought with it an increasing focus on systems, devices, protocols, and other aspects of the technological mediation of culture. This article considers the two most prominent instances of technological inquiry — media archaeology and the theory of cultural techniques — in order to show how literary studies can learn from and contribute to the ongoing re-evaluation of the relationship between technology and culture. On the basis of a philological argument tracing the emergence of the concept of “technology” in classical rhetoric and its transformation during the first Industrial Revolution, the article develops a critique of the Enlightenment distinction between technology and discursivity, and calls for a new “technographic” understanding of the dialectic between the two.