Seeing Things
€ 42,90
Informação do Produto
| ISBN | 9781501784941 |
|---|---|
| Autores | Amanda Shubert |
| Editora | Cornell University Press |
| Formato | Capa mole |
| Número de páginas | 277 |
| Peso (kg) | 0,382 |
| Data de Publicação | 15/11/2025 |
| Preço (iva excl.) | € 40,47 |
| Imposto | € 2,43 |
| Preço (iva inc.) | € 42,90 |
| Disponibilidade | 1 unidade em armazém externo |
Descrição do Produto
A cultural history of nineteenth-century media imaginaries, Seeing Things tells the story of how Victorians experienced the virtual images created by modern optical technologies – magic lanterns, stereoscopes, phenakistoscopes, museum displays, and illusionistic stage magic. Amanda Shubert argues that interactions with these devices gave rise to a new virtual aesthetics – an understanding of visual and perceptual encounters with things that are not really there. The popularization of Victorian optical media redefined visuality as a rational mode of spectatorship that taught audiences to distinguish illusion from reality. As an aesthetic expression of a civilizational ideal that defined the capacity to see but not believe, to be entertained without being deceived, it became a sign of western supremacy. By tracing the development of virtual aesthetics through nineteenth-century writings, from the novels of George Eliot and Charles Dickens to popular science writing and imperial travelogues, Seeing Things recovers a formative period of technological and literary innovation to explain how optical media not only anticipated cinema but became a paradigmatic media aesthetic of western modernity.