The Telephone Book: Technology, Schizophrenia, Electric Speech

by Avital Ronell

Book Overview

The telephone marks the place of an absence. Affiliated with discontinuity, alarm, and silence, it raises fundamental questions about the constitution of self and other, the stability of location, systems of transfer, and the destination of speech. Profoundly changing our concept of long-distance, it is constantly transmitting effects of real and evocative power. To the extent that it always relates us to the absent other, the telephone, and the massive...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0803289383
• ISBN13: 9780803289383
• Release Date: July 1991
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Length: 484 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

Avital is Cool--

those who want to protect the "integrity" of academia would not enjoy this book, but what can I say? Avital is a punk. She does not ask you to love her. Yet I find her writings generous; those who always feel to be orphans of society can understand what is going on in this book as well as her "Crack Wars" and recent "Stupidity." She is very much interested in transforming the world. I am contiually inspired by her writings. Aside from Nietzsche, she is the only one who has shown me that philosophy can be rock n roll.

jarred old coots

Ronell is the new scholarship. Praised be. Her style is innovative and she actually has something new to say about dead white guys. It's high time professors on respirators retired anyway. PS: She's the CHAIR of German Lit., Dr. Geezer.

Stunning

This book is a playful, yet serious look at technology and its relation to the philosophy that defines our 20th-century thinking and the metaphysical breakdown it embodies. Ronell's writing is often beautiful, and the typeset of the book is highly original and interesting. Addressing Heidegger, Graham Bell, psychoanalytic thinking and other such topics, all via telephonics, this book challenges its readers in a creative, critical way.

Jarring, indeed...

NOT FOR BEGINNERS OR THE FAINT OF HEART! A must read for anyone wishing to understand the strange convergences that have made up American technology, literature, and culture over the last century. Other commentaries notwithstanding, I believe this is an original and philosophically important text. 'Tis true that its language is bizzare, disjointed, "jarring". Yet, its themes and investigative technique represent important ways of examining tangled (post)modern literature and culture. Many will find its decentering of scientificity disturbing, but a careful examination of its passages reveals intricate and subtle arguments not easily dismissed -- and too often ignored by proponents of "truth" and rigorous "method". The style is reminiscent of other (post)modern literatures (Acker and Burroughs come to mind) and is a refreshing departure from standard critical language. Ignore detractors and forge your own opinions about this difficult text! Ms. Ronell has deservedly held many teaching positions at important universities and has been, in my opinion, instrumental in getting students to reevaluate their interpretive models of literature, language, and culture.