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The Digital Logic of Death: Confronting Mortality in Contemporary Media

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title The Digital Logic of Death: Confronting Mortality in Contemporary Media
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Dr Steven Pustay
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:224
Dimensions(mm): Height 229,Width 152
Category/GenreDigital lifestyle
ISBN/Barcode 9781501372384
ClassificationsDewey:306.9
Audience
Tertiary Education (US: College)
Illustrations 42 bw illus

Publishing Details

Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic USA
Publication Date 28 July 2022
Publication Country United States

Description

This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched. In The Digital Logic of Death, Steven Pustay skillfully makes visible the immensely important but often overlooked role that moving images play in shaping our understanding of mortality. This relationship, he argues, is made all the more urgent by the technologies of the digital age, which have profoundly altered our ability to represent and contemplate death through moving images, resulting in an entirely new cultural logic of death. To draw out this new logic, Pustay presents accessible readings of otherwise dense and difficult philosophical approaches to death - such as those found in existentialism, psychoanalysis, and critical theory - by reading them through the lens of contemporary media. From art-house films like Irreversible and The Fountain to blockbusters like the Matrix trilogy, from television commercials for M&M's to pay-cable dramas like The Sopranos and Breaking Bad, from first-person shooters like Bioshock to indie-games like LIMBO, Pustay shows how moving images have shifted our understanding of death in general and our recognition of our own finiteness in particular.

Author Biography

Steven Pustay has taught film theory and world cinema at colleges in Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, and Colorado, USA.

Reviews

This book offers an original understanding of death in the digital age where simulations of death are replacing our understanding of death and what it means to be human. Via well-chosen case studies and thought provoking observations it argues that the digital logic of death actually emphasizes that our finitude is (and remains in the digital age) what makes us human. * Patricia Pisters, Professor of Media and Film Studies, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands *