{"product_id":"knowing-books-the-consciousness-of-mediation-in-eighteenth-century-britain-9780812243727","title":"Knowing Books: The Consciousness of Mediation in Eighteenth-Century Britain","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe eighteenth century has long been associated with realism and objective description, modes of representation that deemphasize writing. But in the middle decades of the century, Christina Lupton observes, authors described with surprising candor the material and economic facets of their own texts' production. In \u003ci\u003eKnowing Books\u003c\/i\u003e Lupton examines a variety of eighteenth-century sources, including sermons, graffiti, philosophical texts, and magazines, which illustrate the range and character of mid-century experiments with words announcing their status as physical objects. Books that \"know\" their own presence on the page and in the reader's hand become, in Lupton's account, tantalizing objects whose entertainment value competes with that of realist narrative. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eKnowing Books\u003c\/i\u003e introduces these mid-eighteenth-century works as part of a long history of self-conscious texts being greeted as fashionable objects. Poststructuralist and Marxist approaches to literature celebrate the consciousness of writing and economic production as belonging to revolutionary understandings of the world, but authors of the period under Lupton's gaze expose the facts of mediation without being revolutionary. On the contrary, their explication of economic and material processes shores up their claim to material autonomy and economic success. Lupton uses media theory and close reading to suggest the desire of eighteenth-century readers to attribute sentience to technologies and objects that entertain them. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eRather than a historical study of print technology, \u003ci\u003eKnowing Books\u003c\/i\u003e offers a humanist interpretation of the will to cede agency to media. This horizon of theoretical engagement makes \u003ci\u003eKnowing Books\u003c\/i\u003e at once an account of the least studied decades of the eighteenth century and a work of relevance for those interested in new attitudes toward media in the twenty-first.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Christina Lupton\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Pennsylvania Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 11\/16\/2011\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSeries:\u003c\/b\u003e Material Texts\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 200\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.1lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.13h x 6.22w x 0.94d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780812243727","brand":"University of Pennsylvania Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42710522560649,"sku":"9780812243727","price":69.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0636\/9240\/6921\/files\/img_1f1743ee-9bc9-4e39-a73d-139c8c725f47.jpg?v=1719537750","url":"https:\/\/sonsanddaughtersbooks.com\/products\/knowing-books-the-consciousness-of-mediation-in-eighteenth-century-britain-9780812243727","provider":"Sons and Daughters Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}