Thumbelina : the culture and technology of millennials

Responsibility: Michel Serres ; translated by Daniel W. Smith.
Uniform Title: Petite poucette. English
Publication: London ; New York : Rowman & Littlefield International, [2015]
Copyright notice: ©2015
Physical description: ix, 85 pages ; 23 cm

At the library

Green Library

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Call number	Note	Status
B2430 .S463 P5813 2015		Unknown

Description

Creators/Contributors

Author/Creator: Serres, Michel author.

Contents/Summary

Contents

Dedication / Acknowledgements / Part I: Thumbelina /
1. Novelties /
2. From the Body to Knowledge /
3. The Individual /
4. What to Transmit? To Whom to Transmit It? How to Transmit It? /
5. Envoi / Part II: School /
1. Thumbelina's Head /
2. The Hard and the Soft /
3. The Space of the Page /
4. New Technologies /
5. A Short History /
6. Thumbelina Meditates /
7. The Voice /
8. Supply and Demand /
9. Children Transfixed /
10. The Liberation of Bodies /
11. Mobility: Conductor and Passenger /
12. The Troubadour of Knowledge /
13. The Disparate Against Classification /
14. The Abstract Concept / Part III: Society /
1. in Praise of Reciprocal Grading /
2. In Praise of Humphrey Potter /
3. The Death of Work /
4. In Praise of the Hospital /
5. In Praise of Human Voices /
6. In Praise of Networks /
7. The Reversal of the Presumption of Incompetence /
8. In Praise of Marquetry /
9. In Praise of the Third Support /
10. In Praise of the Pseudonym /
11. The Algorithmic and the Procedural /
12. Emergence /
13. In Praise of the Code /
14. In Praise of the Passport /
15. The Image of Society Today / Index.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Publisher's summary

The title of this timely and thought-provoking book, a French bestseller, refers to schoolgirls sending text messages to their friends on their smart phones. Michel Serres, one of France's most important living intellectuals, uses this image to get at something far broader: that humans are formed and shaped by technologies, and that with the advent of computers, smart phones, and the Internet, a new human is being born. These new humans beings are our children-thumbelina (petite poucette) and tom thumb (petit poucet)-but technologies have been changing so fast that parents scarcely know their children. Serres documents this cultural revolution, arguing that there have been several similar revolutions in the past: from oral cultures to cultures focused on reading and writing; the advent of the printing press; and now the complex changes brought about by the new information technologies-changes that are taking place at an accelerated pace and that affect us all.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Subjects

Subjects: Information society > Social aspects.

Bibliographic information

Publication date: 2015
ISBN: 9781783480708 (cloth : alk. paper); 178348070X (cloth : alk. paper); 9781783480715 (pbk. : alk. paper); 1783480718 (pbk. : alk. paper); 9781783480722 (ebook)