The Noise of Culture : : Literary Texts in a World of Information / / William Paulson.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Archive Pre-2000
• VerfasserIn: Paulson, William,
• MitwirkendeR: Paulson, William R.,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2019]; ©1988
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (208 p.)

William Paulson believes that as contemporary science extends its influence over areas of thought that have long been the province of the humanities, scholars in literary disciplines may suffer for their lack of contact with work in the sciences of mind and information. In The Noise of Culture, he speculates on the role of literature in the post-literary culture of the information age and proposes a vital reorientation of the study of literature, both affirming its specificity and exploring its developing relationship with modem science.Paulson discusses literature in the context of information theory, particularly the theory of self-organizing and autonomous systems. Reviewing and building upon the work of such thinkers as Michel Serres, Henri Atlan, Francisco Varela, and Judith Schlanger, Paulson offers a new kind of conceptual vocabulary for literary theory. He concludes that literature functions as the noise of culture, a source of variety in the circulation and production of ideas and a rich and indeterminate margin through which messages are sent and transformed.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- 1. Literature and the Division of Knowledge -- 2. Science at Work: The Writings of Michel Serres -- 3. Self-Organizing Systems: Information and Noise -- 4. Strange Objects: Complexity, Autonomy, and Literary Texts -- 5. Texts and Their Study: Intellectual Invention in an Open World -- Bibliography -- Index