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Everywhere and Nowhere: Anonymity and Mediation in Eighteenth-Century Britain
University of Minnesota Press, 2018 Paper: 978-1-5179-0407-4 | Cloth: 978-1-5179-0406-7 Library of Congress Classification PR121.V37 2018 Dewey Decimal Classification 820.9005
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
A fascinating analysis of anonymous publication centuries before the digital age
Mark Vareschi shows the entangled relationship between mediation and anonymity, revealing the nonhuman agency of the printed text. Drawing richly on quantitative analysis and robust archival work, Vareschi brings together philosophy, literary theory, and media theory in a trenchant analysis, uncovering a history of textual engagement and interpretation that does not hinge on the known authorial subject. In discussing anonymous poetry, drama, and the novel along with anonymously published writers such as Daniel Defoe, Frances Burney, and Walter Scott, he unveils a theory of mediation that renews broader questions about agency and intention. Vareschi argues that textual intentionality is a property of nonhuman, material media rather than human subjects alone, allowing the anonymous literature of the eighteenth century to speak to contemporary questions of meaning in the philosophy of language. Vareschi closes by exploring dubious claims about the death of anonymity and the reexplosion of anonymity with the coming of the digital. Ultimately, Everywhere and Nowhere reveals the long history of print anonymity so central to the risks and benefits of the digital culture. See other books on: Book industries and trade | Eighteenth - Century Britain | Everywhere | Nowhere | Poverty & Homelessness See other titles from University of Minnesota Press |
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