Anthropologies of Entanglements

Anthropologies of Entanglement develops a new and inspiring approach to understanding our contemporary condition of the “Mediocene”, in which the human and natural spheres are indissolubly intertwined with and permeated by media. Its key word, “Anthropomediality,” convincingly suggests to conceive the human existence as mediatic; the relation comes before the related. The 16 contributions by international authors from a broad variety of fields brilliantly discuss the entanglements that precede all forms of reification and anthropogenesis. * Christoph Menke, Professor, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Germany *
This splendid collection includes essays tackling examples from the multiple histories of our co-evolution with technologies (from the prostheses of World War I to today’s surveillance devices of the train station) and others offering ways to conceptualize the status of human-media interrelations, and their inseparability, that entanglement carried in Voss’ term, “anthropomediality.” The writing is consistently lucid and engaging, as well as helpful in unfolding dense theories into usable form and in applying them to a diversity of films (from Rocky to Claire Denis). The book will be particularly valuable for students wanting to think more deeply about the consequences of a traffic that courses among media and existence. * Antonia Lant, Professor of Cinema Studies, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, USA *