The Edinburgh Companion to Modernism and Technology

Abstract

The first comprehensive reference book to define and delineate the intersections of modernism and technology Proposes significant new ways for understanding the intersections of modernism and technology Includes original research contributions from a diverse and interdisciplinary range of modernist scholars Offers a key research resource for scholars in modernist studies and cognate areas Provides a classroom-ready collection of essays relevant to undergraduate and graduate courses on modernist literature, art and culture Though modernism’s emergence in an environment of techno-cultural acceleration has long been recognized, recent scholarship has deepened and challenged our understanding of the connections between twentieth-century cultural production and its technological interlocutors. In twenty-eight chapters by leading academics, The Edinburgh Companion to Modernism and Technology re-examines the machines and media that functioned as modernism’s contexts and competitors. Grounded in an interdisciplinary approach informed by the theoretical and socio-historical frames of current teaching and research on modernism and technology, this research volume makes a crucial and timely intervention in the field of modernist studies. The scholarly contributions on machines that govern transport, production, and public utilities, on media and communication technologies, on the intersections of technology with the human body, and on the technological systems of the early twentieth century capture the contemporary state of modernist technology studies and chart the future directions of this vibrant area.