THE MARVELOUS CLOUDS: TOWARD A PHILOSOPHY OF ELEMENTAL MEDIA
Book ID/图书代码： 13560015B79915
English Summary/英文概要： When we speak of clouds these days, it is as likely that we mean data clouds or network clouds as cumulus or stratus. In their sharing of the term, both kinds of clouds reveal an essential truth: that the natural world and the technological world are not so distinct. In The Marvelous Clouds, John Durham Peters argues that though we often think of media as environments, the reverse is just as true—environments are media.
Peters defines media expansively as elements that compose the human world. Drawing from ideas implicit in media philosophy, Peters argues that media are more than carriers of messages: they are the very infrastructures combining nature and culture that allow human life to thrive. Through an encyclopedic array of examples from the oceans to the skies, The Marvelous Clouds reveals the long prehistory of so-called new media. Digital media, Peters argues, are an extension of early practices tied to the establishment of civilization such as mastering fire, building calendars, reading the stars, creating language, and establishing religions. New media do not take us into uncharted waters, but rather confront us with the deepest and oldest questions of society and ecology: how to manage the relations people have with themselves, others, and the natural world.
A wide-ranging meditation on the many means we have employed to cope with the struggles of existence—from navigation to farming, meteorology to Google—The Marvelous Clouds shows how media lie at the very heart of our interactions with the world around us. Peters’s book will not only change how we think about media but provide a new appreciation for the day-to-day foundations of life on earth that we so often take for granted.
Chinese Summary/中文概要： 今天，当我们提及“云”这个概念时，我们有可能是说“数据云端”或“网络云端”，也有可能是说气象上的积云或层云。由于其共享一个词汇，两种“云”揭示了一个真理：自然世界和科技世界的区别已不再明显。在《不可思议的云端》一书中，作者John Durham Peters认为，尽管很多时候，我们把媒介当作环境，但事实上，反之亦然——环境亦是媒介。
Peters从广义的角度定义了媒介，认为媒介是构成人类世界的各类元素。Peters借鉴了媒介哲学中的隐含理念，指出媒介不仅仅是信息的载体：更是结合了自然和文化的基础设施，正是由于这种自然和文化，人类才得以繁衍生息。《不可思议的云端》通过一系列例子，揭示了所谓“新媒介”的史前变化。Peters认为，数字媒介是人类早期实践的延伸，该类早期实践与人类文明的建立紧密相关，例如，取火、天文星象、语言创造、宗教设立等。新媒介为我们带来了社会和生态的深刻问题：如何管理人类与自身、人类与他人以及人类与大自然的关系。
《不可思议的云端》展现了媒介在人类与周围世界互动中的地位。Peters的这本书将不仅改变我们对媒介的看法，还将为我们习以为常的生命基础提供新的见解。(LYR)
Awards/获奖情况：这是一本关于媒介的书籍，在本书中，作者Peters将水、土、火、天空化作透镜，透过这些元素，读者可以探索冥想在我们生活中每个部分的作用。这是一本彻底原创的、充满抱负的读物，定会改变你对媒介的看法，或许还会改变你对世界的看法。（Fred Turner，作家）
“This book is about media in the way that Moby-Dick is about whaling. When Melville set the Pequod sailing between heaven and earth, he turned the ship into a lens through which his readers could examine humankind’s place in the cosmos. In The Marvelous Clouds, Peters turns water, land, fire, and sky into lenses through which readers can explore the role of mediation in every aspect of their lives. This is a completely original, wildly ambitious, and deliciously lyrical book. It will certainly change the way you see media. It might also change the way you see the world.”
(Fred Turner, author of The Democratic Surround: Multimedia and American Liberalism from World War II to the Psychedelic Sixties)
About the Author/作者介绍： John Durham Peters 是爱荷华大学传媒学教授，曾著有《空气对话》和《追求深渊》，两本著作均由芝加哥大学出版社出版。Peters现在居住在爱荷华市John Durham Peters is the A. Craig Baird Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa. He is the author of Speaking into the Air and Courting the Abyss, both also published by the University of Chicago Press. He lives in Iowa City.
Format:
Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：AVAILABLE
Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE
Sales in other countries/其他国家销售情况：Korean sold to Culturelook Publishing Co. via Agency-One
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