Teletheory

by Gregory L. Ulmer

The second and revised edition of a groundbreaking philosophical treatise from a leading authority on the theory and practice of electronic culture in the media age. Continuing the work of post(e)-pedagogy of Applied Grammatology, Ulmer's Teletheory is the second book of his trilogy on the modes of inquiry which concludes with Heuretics. Teletheory addresses the paradigm shift from literacy to electracy, using philosophy of science as well as Roland Barthes' design of an image rhetoric. The invention of a new historiography as experience of subjectivation culminates in a poetics extracted from philosophy of science, critical theory, and videography, which is tested with a sample of the genre: "Derrida at the Little Bighorn." The functionality of collage-montage as logic is probed, resulting in a position of singularity.

Genres: Film

328 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[matthew harding · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been rereading Teletheory for most of this current semester. My earlier reading took place when I was initially setting up a mystory for my class. I've "taught" the mystory for several semesters now and going back into Teletheory made all kinds of lights go on in my head, which is as it should be. In Internet Invention Ulmer placed his chapter notes at the end of each chapter and I thought that they should have come in earlier so that students would have some context for their work, but I had it backwards--you do the work and then you read about what you've been trying to accomplish (action learning/doing as learning). This mode of teaching is antithetical to this present teaching paradigm's fixation with "clarity."
I guess I'm saying that if you are reading Teletheory to gain context, you'd be much better off doing a mystory before reading it.
Unlike Ulmer's book Heuretics, which breaks down the CATTt "anti method" Teletheory provides you with a basic understanding of the process of "conductive" reasoning, at least in how it applies to the mystory work; however, since the mystory is "choraic" this understanding can only be gained through analogy, so lots and lots of analogous writing is something you should expect in Teletheory. Personally, I had many minor epiphanies as I reread the book and since one of the reasons behind teaching the mystory is to teach the students how to have epiphanies--that's how you know that you actually learned something--I would say that this book has proved to be quite helpful in understanding the philosophical and pedagogical roots of the mystory practice; although the last section of the book is comprised of Ulmer's redo of his earlier mystory.

[Lisa Oliner · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this, the second book of his trilogy on modes of inquiry, Gregory L. Ulmer probes the functionality of collage-montage as logic that results in a position of singularity.