Stephen Sale & Laura Salisbury 
Kittler Now 
Current Perspectives in Kittler Studies

Friedrich Kittler was one of the world’s most influential,
provocative and misunderstood media theorists. His work spans
analyses of historical ‘discourse networks’ inspired by
French poststructuralism, influential theorizations of new media,
through to musings on music and mathematics. Always controversial
and relentlessly unpredictable, Kittler’s work is a major
reference point for contemporary media theory, literary criticism
and cultural studies.

This is the only book of essays currently available in English
on an important thinker whose influence across disciplines is
growing. The volume situates Kittler’s ideas, explaining and
critiquing his sometimes difficult writing, and using his theories
to undertake innovative readings of old and new media. It also
includes previously untranslated work by Kittler himself.
Contributors include Caroline Bassett, Steven Connor, Alexander R.
Galloway, Mark B. Hansen, John Durham Peters and Geoffrey
Winthrop-Young.

Table of Content

Acknowledgements

Contributors

Editors’ introduction

Section I: Grecian 2000

1. Friedrich Kittler — The God of Ears (Translated by Paul Feigelfeld and Anthony Moore)

2. John Durham Peters — Assessing Kittler’s Musik und Mathematik

3. Stephen Sale — Thinking By Numbers: the role of mathematics in Kittler and Heidegger

4. Geoffrey Winthrop-Young — Siren Recursions

5. Friedrich Kittler — Preparing the Arrival of the Gods

Section II: ‘Our Writing Tools are also Working on our Thoughts’

6. Steven Connor — Scilicet: Kittler, Media and Madness

7. Katherine Biers — The Typewriter’s Truth

8. Gill Partington — Films in Books/Books in Film: Fahrenheit 451 and the Media Wars

Section III: Theorising New Media

9. Alexander R. Galloway — If the Cinema Is an Ontology, the Computer Is an Ethic

10. Caroline Bassett — Staring into the Sun

11. Mark B. N. Hansen — Symbolising Time: Kittler and 21st Century Media

Notes

Translated by Paul Feigelfeld and Anthony Moore

About the author

Stephen Sale is a Ph D candidate at the London Consortium

Laura Salisbury is Senior Lecturer in Medicine & English Literature at the University of Exeter