Ninety-six letters to the Tatler and the Spectator, representing what is probably the largest extant body of unpublished material relating directly to the two journals, appeared for the first time in print in this book.
The original letters were not published in the Tatler or the Spectator, but they were preserved by the editors and eventually found their way into the Marlborough and the Tickell collections. They have been prepared for publication and edited, with notes and an introduction, by an authority in the field of early periodicals.
The letters will be of especial interest to students of early eighteenth-century England, for few literary forms more clearly reflect the times in which they are written than the letter, particularly the letter to the editor. A wide range of writers is represented—the inarticulate and the witty, the serving maid and the gentleman. Subject matter is equally diverse, including such topics as women's petticoats, free thinking, the state lottery, the nuisance of a smoking wife, cock-throwing, and Platonic love.
Why the letters were not published in the Tatler or the Spectator is a matter for conjecture. Some of them were apparently used by Addison or Steele as topics for essays. Occasionally a letter was received or rewritten by the editors and printed in an altered form. Whatever the reason for their survival, these letters will be of value to students of language and literary journalism, social conditions, and popular philosophy.
A study of how film has continually intervened in our sense of perception, with far-ranging insights into the current state of lived experience
How has cinema transformed our senses, and how does it continue to do so? Positing film as a stage in the long coevolution of human consciousness and visual technology, Postcinematic Vision offer a fresh perspective on the history of film while providing startling new insights into the so-called divide between cinematic and digital media.
Starting with the argument that film viewing has long altered neural circuitry in our brains, Roger F. Cook proceeds to reevaluate film’s origins, as well as its merger with digital imaging in the 1990s. His animating argument is that film has continually altered the relation between media and human perception, challenging the visual nature of modern culture in favor of a more unified, pan-sensual way of perceiving. Through this approach, he makes original contributions to our understanding of how mediation is altering lived experience.
Along the way, Cook provides important reevaluations of well-known figures such as Franz Kafka, closely reading cinematic passages in the great author’s work; he reassesses the conventional wisdom that Marshall McLuhan was a technological determinist; and he lodges an original new reading of The Matrix. Full of provocative and far-reaching ideas, Postcinematic Vision is a powerful work that helps us see old concepts anew while providing new ideas for future investigation.
The Spectator and the Topographical City examines Pittsburgh’s built environment as it relates to the city’s unique topography. Martin Aurand explores the conditions present in the natural landscape that led to the creation of architectural forms; man’s response to an unruly terrain of hills, hollows, and rivers. From its origins as a frontier fortification to its heyday of industrial expansion; through eras of City Beautiful planning and urban Renaissance to today’s vision of a green sustainable city; Pittsburgh has offered environmental and architectural experiences unlike any other place.
Aurand adopts the viewpoint of the spectator to study three of Pittsburgh’s “terrestrial rooms”: the downtown Golden Triangle; the Turtle Creek Valley with its industrial landscape; and Oakland, the cultural and university district. He examines the development of these areas and their significance to our perceptions of a singular American city, shaped to its topography.
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