Summary
Contents
Subject index
How might we understand entanglements of the mind, brain, body and world? And how can we develop creative forms of experimentation to enact these entanglements?
In this unique contribution, Blackman focuses upon the affective capacities of bodies, human and non-human as well as addressing the challenges of the affective turn within social sciences. Fresh and convincing, this book uncovers the paradoxes and tensions in work in affect studies by focusing on practices and experiences, including voice hearing, suggestion, hypnosis, telepathy, the placebo effect, rhythm and related phenomena. Questioning the traditional idea of mind over matter, as well as discussing the danger of setting up a false distinction between the two, this book makes for an invaluable addition within cultural theory and the recent turn to affect.
In a powerful and engaging matter, Blackman discusses the immaterial body across the neurosciences, physiology, media and cultural studies, body-studies, artwork, performance, psychology and psychoanalysis. Interdisciplinary in its core, this book is a must for everyone seeking a dynamic and thought provoking analysis of culture and communication today.
Mental Touch: Media Technologies and the Problem of Telepathy
Mental Touch: Media Technologies and the Problem of Telepathy
There is now an expanding literature within the humanities which has begun to re-examine concepts of ‘mental touch’, which originated within nineteenth- and twentieth-century psychic research. Some of this work has been developed in the context of work on the senses (Howes, 2009), media technologies (Andriopoulos, 2005, 2008; Kittler, 1990; Sconce, 2000), and debates on affect and subjectivity (Blackman, 2010a; Campbell and Pile, 2010; Gibbs, 2008). This work recognizes that the management of attention, perception and sensation is important to understand our relationships to consumer culture, screen and televisual culture, digital technologies and so forth. Some of this work has begun to revitalize the idea of a ‘sixth ...
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