{"product_id":"relays-literature-as-an-epoch-of-the-postal-system-9780804732383","title":"Relays: Literature as an Epoch of the Postal System","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis book examines how one aspect of the social and technological situation of literature--namely, the postal system--determined how literature was produced and what was produced within literature. Language itself has the structure of a relay, where what is transmitted depends on a prior withholding. The social arrangements and technologies for achieving this transmission thus have had a particularly powerful impact on the imagination of literature as a medium.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe book has three parts. The first part reconstructs the postal conditions of classic and Romantic literature: the invention of postage in the seventeenth century, which transformed the postal system into a service meant to be used by the population (instead of by the prince alone); the sexualization of letter writing, which was introduced in the middle of the eighteenth century and changed the reading of a letter into an interpretation of intimate confessions of the soul; and Goethe's turning of this new ontology of the letter into a logistics of literature whereby literary authorship was constructed by means of postal logistics, with the precision of engineering.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe second part analyzes nineteenth-century postal innovations that facilitated communication through letters and examines how literary works were able to live off such communication. These innovations included the reform of the post office; the invention of the postage stamp; the Universal Postal Union, which subjected letter writing to an economy of materials and uniform standards; and the telegraph and the telephone, which surpassed literature in terms of speed, economy, and analog-signal processing.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn the third part, on the basis of a close reading of Franz Kafka's letters to his typist-fiancée, the author demonstrates how postal logistics of love and authorship have worked in the era of modern postal systems and technical media. Kafka's correspondence is deciphered as a \"war of nerves\" waged by means of all available techniques and conditions of transmission.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Bernhard Siegert\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Stanford University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 06\/01\/1999\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSeries:\u003c\/b\u003e Writing Science\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 340\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.05lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.97h x 6.00w x 0.80d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780804732383","brand":"Stanford University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43369829204105,"sku":"9780804732383","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0636\/9240\/6921\/files\/img_9b3def5f-3631-475d-acf4-3f7fb4e9d907.jpg?v=1739858629","url":"https:\/\/sonsanddaughtersbooks.com\/products\/relays-literature-as-an-epoch-of-the-postal-system-9780804732383","provider":"Sons and Daughters Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}