Günther Anders’ Philosophy of Technology: From Phenomenology to Critical Theory

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Gunter Anders' Philosophy of Technology is the first comprehensive exploration of the ground-breaking work of German thinker Gunter Anders. Anders' philosophy has become increasingly prescient in our digitised, technological age as his work predicts the prevalence of social media, ubiquitous surveillance and the turn to big data. Anders' ouevre also explored the technologies of nuclear power and the biotech concerns for the human and transhuman condition which have become so central to current theory. Babette Babich argues that Anders offers important resources on streaming digital media through his writings on radio, television and film and is, unusually, both a comprehensive and profound thinker. Anders' relationship with key philosophers like Hannah Arendt and Walter Benjamin and his thinking on Goethe, Nietzsche and Rilke is also explored with a focus on the deep impact he made on his peers. It reflects specifically on the intersection of Anders’ thought Heidegger and the Frankfurt school and how influential a figure he was on the landscape of 20th century philosophy. A compelling rehabilitation of a thinker with profound contemporary relevance Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents Figures Preface Gratitude and a Prefatory Note on Acknowledgements Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction Black Stars On the “We” of the “With-World” and Social Media Life and Legacy A Star Among Other Stars Suppression: Positivity and Neutrality Consumers and “Situations” Nomen est omen: “Other” Reflections Part I: A Critical Theory of Technology Chapter 1: Criticizing Technology Questioning Being-in-the-World, the Work of Art, and Technology On the Intersection of Sociology and Anthropology, Critical Theory, and Technology: Günther Anders and Power Insiders and their “Discounted” Others Oblivion Whither? Whose Critical Theory? Media Branding: How to do Politics with Programming and iGadgets Chapter 2: Heidegger’s Authenticity and Günther Anders’ Neg-Anthropology Heidegger’s Authenticity and Günther Anders’ “Humanism” Jemeinigkeit: On Becoming a Question to Oneself Anthropologism and Psychologism Heidegger on Dasein and the Seinsfrage “Who,” Then, is Dasein? On Animal Dasein: Anders and “Other” Others Sein and Dasein without God Chapter 3: Günther Anders and Hannah Arendt: Love, Triangles, and the Political Philosophical Triangles: Students, Scholars, Lovers Triangulating the Triangle: Arendt–Heidegger–Anders Chapter 4: Anders and Arendt Reading Rilke: Love Songs to God Kafka Rilke Angels Elegies: Poetry and Hearing/Poetry and the Schma The Cherry Slaughter: Back to Love Chapter 5: Between the Lines: Benjamin’s Angels of History and Anders’ Apocalypse Having Been Angels of History Time Heidegger and Time: New Rules Time/Space Whose Holocaust? Which Genocide(s)? Once More, With Feeling Chapter 6: Anders and Adorno: Genocide On What We Have Done Singulare Tantum: Whose Genocide? Which Genocide? Thinking the Holocaust Colonialism and the Exploitation of the Globe Chapter 7: From Anders’ Sexless Capuchin to Virilio’s Chimeras Economy, Power and Possibility, Impotence and Sexuation From Consumption to Biotech Manufacture and Art: Homo Materia Part II: Anders, Media, Music Chapter 8: Radio Ghosts Ghosts Radio Transforms: Politics and Music Phenomenology’s Ghosts: Anders’ Phenomenology of Radio Listening Media-Induced, Collective, “Autism” Chapter 9: Being-in-Music Music Critique and Musical “Situation” Situational Phenomenology: Underway to a Hermeneutics of Music Positive Attunement: Sociological Reflections on the Musical “Situation” Transformation and Transfiguration Critical Sociology of Music Being-In Chapter 10: Transistor Radios and Media “Überveillance”: From Anders’ “Radio Leash” to Tracing “Ground Control to Major Tom” Political Philosophies of Technologies The Skies Down to Earth: Being Without Time Chapter 11: Pop Music (and Jazz), and Covers (and Copies) Transitioning: From Anders’ Radio “Leash” to Cohen’s Hallelujah Death and Taxes Pop as Contemporary Music: Fortunes and Futures Cover Culture Darker Stars: Death and Silence Part III: Schizotopic Thought: Planetarism and Apocalypse Blindness Chapter 12: Political Media Theory, Hiroshima, and Nuclear Power Plants From the Holocaust to Hiroshima: “Chernobyl is Everywhere” Other Than, One More Time “Seit ein Gespräch wir sind”26 Violence Contra Violence What about Violence: Yes? or No? Chapter 13: “The Devil’s New Apartment” Apocalyptic Thinking Nightmare Counting Industrial Revolutions Weather Talk: How to Do Things with Clouds The “Modern Prometheus” Geoforming, Masks, and Us “Cosmic Parvenus” Notes Bibliography Name Index Subject Index