A01=Barry Brummett
Author_Barry Brummett
Business: Business Communications
Category=CFG
Category=JBCC
Category=QDTN
eq_bestseller
eq_dictionaries-language-reference
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Product details
- ISBN 9780275966447
- Weight: 425g
- Dimensions: 156 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 30 Jul 1999
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Brummett addresses the question of how the aesthetic experience of machines can have rhetorical influence. He develops a theory of machine aesthetics, showing nine dimensions of the aesthetic experience of machines and machine-like objects or activities. He identifies three general types of machine aesthetics: Mechtech, classical machine aesthetics based on hardware, gears, pistons, and so forth; Electrotech, high technology machine aesthetics based on the ability of electricity to put machinery on the human scale; and Chaotech, the aesthetic appeal of the decayed machine. In each case, rhetorical applications of the aesthetic are explored. A final critical application shows how the film Brazil warns its audience that fascism can be supported by simulations based on machine aesthetics.
Brummett's book develops and articulates ideas in the fields of rhetoric and literature that have not been brought together before. In a radical departure, Brummett sees machines not as passive backdrops to human intercourse, but rather as possessing a powerful rhetoric of their own. The book will be of great interest to scholars and students of communications, art, and aesthetics.
BARRY BRUMMETT is Professor of Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is the author of several books and articles, including Contemporary Apocalyptic Rhetoric (Praeger, 1991).
