Books about Cyberculture from Amazon.com

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In Ecology without Nature, Timothy Morton argues that the chief stumbling block to environmental thinking is the image of nature itself. Ecological writers propose a new worldview, but their very zeal to preserve the natural world leads them away from the "nature" they revere. The problem is a symptom of the ecological catastrophe in which we are living. Morton sets out a seeming paradox: to have a properly ecological view, we must relinquish the idea of nature once and for all.

Ecology without Nature investigates our ecological assumptions in a way that is provocative and deeply engaging. Ranging widely in eighteenth-century through contemporary philosophy, culture, and history, he explores the value of art in imagining environmental projects for the future. Morton develops a fresh vocabulary for reading "environmentality" in artistic form as well as content, and traces the contexts of ecological constructs through the history of capitalism. From John Clare to John Cage, from Kierkegaard to Kristeva, from The Lord of the Rings to electronic life forms, Ecology without Nature widens our view of ecological criticism, and deepens our understanding of ecology itself. Instead of trying to use an idea of nature to heal what society has damaged, Morton sets out a radical new form of ecological criticism: "dark ecology."

(20080401).
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View the Table of Contents.   Read the Introduction.

”As more and more people use computers, the Internet and mobile phones, the study of their effects on our culture (and vice versa) becomes increasingly important Framed as a “how-to guide for those new to cyberstudies”, Critical Cyberculture Studies goes some of the way to emphasising the importance and the diversity of this young academic field.”
—M/C Reviews

"As studies of the Internet and cyberculture begin to mature, it is a particularly important time for critical studies--critical of the subject matter, and critical of the emerging field itself. The consciously interdisciplinary approach of Critical Cyberculture Studies, and the depth and breadth of the contributions, make this an important foundational work for a new field of study. If only we had had a critical study of communication when the Gutenberg revolution was beginning!"
—Howard Rheingold, author of The Virtual Community and Smart Mobs

"This expansive book functions as both survey and call to action. Even as they map the shifting contours of an emergent field, the editors and contributors warn against the deadening force of disciplinarity. They encourage a nimble, flexible formulation of cyberculture studies, one that can keep pace with the rapid pulse of technological change and, more importantly, also address the injustices wrought of life in a networked age. Like the best traditions of cultural studies, they aim not just to describe our moment but to matter in the world."
—Tara McPherson, USC School of Cinema-Television

Starting in the early 1990s, journalists and scholars began responding to and trying to take account of new technologies and their impact on our lives. By the end of the decade, the full-fledged study of cyberculture had arrived. Today, there exists a large body of critical work on the subject, with cutting-edge studies probing beyond the mere existence of virtual communities and online identities to examine the social, cultural, and economic relationships that take place online.

Taking stock of the exciting work that is being done and positing what cyberculture's future might look like, Critical Cyberculture Studies brings together a diverse and multidisciplinary group of scholars from around the world to assess the state of the field. Opening with a historical overview of the field by its most prominent spokesperson, it goes on to highlight the interests and methodologies of a mobile and creative field, providing a much-needed how-to guide for those new to cyberstudies. The final two sections open up to explore issues of race, class, and gender and digital media's ties to capital and commerce—from the failure of dot-coms to free software and the hacking movement.

This flagship book is a must-read for anyone interested in the dynamic and increasingly crucial study of cyberculture and new technologies.

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The Internet in China examines the cultural and political ramifications of the Internet for Chinese society. The rapid growth of the Internet has been enthusiastically embraced by the Chinese government, but the government has also rushed to seize control of the virtual environment. Individuals have responded with impassioned campaigns against official control of information. The emergence of a civil society via cyberspace has had profound effects upon China--for example, in 2003, based on an Internet campaign, the Chinese Supreme People's Court overturned the ruling of a local court for the first time since the Communist Party came to power in 1949.
The important question this book asks is not whether the Internet will democratize China, but rather in what ways the Internet is democratizing communication in China. How is the Internet empowering individuals by fostering new types of social spaces and redefining existing social relations?.
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The Cybercultures Reader brings together key writings in the exciting and interdisciplinary field of cyberculture studies, providing, in one volume, a comprehensive guide to the ways in which new technologies are reshaping cultural forms and practices.

This new, updated and thoroughly revised edition of the best-selling The Cybercultures Reader includes a host of contemporary articles following this emerging and developing field. The Reader covers all the main areas of current research. New sections for this edition include:

• cybercommunities
• cyberidentities
• cyberlife
• cyberpolitics.

With general and thematic section introductions, a full bibliography and a user's guide, this edition is an indispensable resource for all those studying or interested in living with and thinking about new technologies.

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"Flame Wars," the verbal firefights that take place between disembodied combatants on electronic bulletin boards, remind us that our interaction with the world is increasingly mediated by computers. Bit by digital bit we are being "Borged," as devotees of Star Trek: The Next Generation would have it—transformed into cyborgian hybrids of technology and biology through our ever more frequent interaction with machines, or with one another through technological interfaces.
The subcultural practices of the "incurably informed," to borrow the cyberpunk novelist Pat Cadigan’s coinage, offer a precognitive glimpse of mainstream culture in the near future, when many of us will be part-time residents in virtual communities. Yet, as the essays in this expanded edition of a special issue of the South Atlantic Quarterly confirm, there is more to fringe computer culture than cyberspace. Within these pages, readers will encounter flame warriors; new age mutant ninja hackers; technopagans for whom the computer is an occult engine; and William Gibson’s "Agrippa," a short story on software that can only be read once because it gobbles itself up as soon as the last page is reached. Here, too, is Lady El, an African American cleaning woman reincarnated as an all-powerful cyborg; devotees of on-line swinging, or "compu-sex"; the teleoperated weaponry and amok robots of the mechanical performance art group, Survival Research Laboratories; an interview with Samuel Delany, and more.
Rallying around Fredric Jameson’s call for a cognitive cartography that "seeks to endow the individual subject with some new heightened sense of place in the global system," the contributors to Flame Wars have sketched a corner of that map, an outline for a wiring diagram of a terminally wired world.

Contributors. Anne Balsamo, Gareth Branwyn, Scott Bukatman, Pat Cadigan, Gary Chapman, Erik Davis, Manuel De Landa, Mark Dery, Julian Dibbell, Marc Laidlaw, Mark Pauline, Peter Schwenger, Vivian Sobchack, Claudia Springer
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David Bell's volume will introduce key ideas and concerns within cybertheory, then move on to discuss the major concepts developed by the three theorists --Donna Haraway, Sherry Turkle and Sean Cubitt, covering Haraway's foundational work on cyborgs, Sherry Turkle's contribution to debates about identity in cyberspace, and Sean Cubitt's development of cybertheory into the realm of aesthetics and visual culture..
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In the first in-depth exploration of fringe computer culture, Dery introduces readers to underground roboticists, cybersex enthusiasts, virtual-reality designers, cyberpunk novelists, and would-be cyborgs. In exploring this strange new world, Drey shifts the focus from the corporations that design the digital machines that are changing our reality to the fringes of cyberculture, where real-life cyberpunks are pursuing the bright promise of these technologies..
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A Steamshovel Web Reader Volume One, edited by Kenn Thomas. The most notorious conspiracy-minded zine on the newsstand and on the web, Steamshovel Press, presents what the conspiracy doesn’t want the readers to have: Information. Both volumes contain powerful conspiratorial undercurrents of recent times and in history. Never again on the net, with links to help involve the readers themselves in the counterconspiracy. The New Yorker calls it "on the cutting edge —and a strange place that is." Volume One includes Reich and Little Rock, Cord Meyer, book reviews, Gloria Steinem, bugs and bombs, Curtis Lemay, Jenny Randles, Iron Mountain, JFK, Lobster, Monicagate, Starbucks murders, right-wing conspiracy, Octopus, Crewes, Ginsberg, Lisker ’s Birthday, Dr. John, Kerry Thornley, and more..
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Needing guidance and seeking insight, the Council of Europe approached Pierre Lévy, one of the world's most important and well-respected theorists of digital culture, for a report on the state (and, frankly, the nature) of cyberspace. The result is this extraordinary document, a perfectly lucid and accessible description of cyberspace-from infrastructure to practical applications-along with an inspired, far-reaching exploration of its ramifications. A window on the digital world for the technologically timid, the book also offers a brilliant vision of the philosophical and social realities and possibilities of cyberspace for the adept and novice alike.

In an overview, Lévy discusses the distinguishing features of cyberspace and cyberculture from anthropological, philosophical, cultural, and sociological points of view. An optimist about the future potential of cyberspace, he eloquently argues that technology-and specifically the infrastructure of cyberspace, the Internet-can have a transformative effect on global society. Some of the issues he takes up are new art forms; changes in relationships to knowledge, education, and training; the preservation of linguistic and cultural differences; the emergence and implications of collective intelligence; the problems of social exclusion; and the impact of new technology on the city and democracy in general.

In considerable detail, Lévy describes the ways in which cyberspace will help promote the growth of democracy, primarily through the participation of individuals or groups. His analysis is enlivened by his own personal impressions of cyberculture-garnered from bulletin boards, mailing lists, virtual reality demonstrations, and simulations. Immediate in its details, visionary in its scope, deeply informed yet free of unnecessary technical language, Cyberculture is the book we require in our digital age.

Pierre Lévy is professor of cyberculture and social communication at the University of Quebec and consultant to the Forward Studies Unit of the European Union on issues of governance and electronic democracy. His many books include Becoming Virtual (1998) and Collective Intelligence (1999). Robert Bononno, a teacher and translator, lives in New York City..
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