Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism

From the Publisher: 
A Question of Identity 
Life on the Screen is a fascinating and wide-ranging investigation of the impact of computers and networking on society, peoples' perceptions of themselves, and the individual's relationship to machines. Sherry Turkle, a Professor of the Sociology of Science at MIT and a licensed psychologist, uses Internet MUDs (multi-user domains, or in older gaming parlance multi-user dungeons) as a launching pad for explorations of software design, user interfaces, simulation, artificial intelligence, artificial life, agents, "bots," virtual reality, and "the on-line way of life." 
Turkle's discussion of postmodernism is particularly enlightening. She shows how postmodern concepts in art, architecture, and ethics are related to concrete topics much closer to home, for example AI research (Minsky's "Society of Mind") and even MUDs (exemplified by students with X-window terminals who are doing homework in one window and simultaneously playing out several different roles in the same MUD in other windows). Those of you who have (like me) been turned off by the shallow, pretentious, meaningless paintings and sculptures that litter our museums of modern art may have a different perspective after hearing what Turkle has to say. 
This is a psychoanalytical book, not a technical one. However, software developers and engineers will find it highly accessible because of the depth of the author's technical understanding and credibility. Unlike most other authors in this genre, Turkle does not constantly jar the technically-literate reader with blatant errors or bogus assertions about how things work. Although I personally don't have time or patience for MUDs,view most of AI as snake-oil, and abhor postmodern architecture, I thought the time spent reading this book was an extremely good investment.

스크린 위의 삶 = Life on the screen : identity in the age of the internet

The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society

Rabelais and His World.

Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. 2004. New York. Penguin Books. 448 pages. ISBN: 0143035592 (paper).

Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire

Digital production tools and online networks have dramatically increased the general visibility, accessibility, and diversity of pornography. Porn can be accessed for free, anonymously, and in a seemingly endless range of niches, styles, and formats. In Carnal Resonance, Susanna Paasonen moves beyond the usual debates over the legal, political, and moral aspects of pornography to address online porn in a media historical framework, investigating its modalities, its affect, and its visceral and disturbing qualities. Countering theorizations of pornography as emotionless, affectless, detached, and cold, Paasonen addresses experiences of porn largely through the notion of affect as gut reactions, intensities of experience, bodily sensations, resonances, and ambiguous feelings. She links these investigations to considerations of methodology (ways of theorizing and analyzing online porn and affect), questions of materiality (bodies, technologies, and inscriptions), and the evolution of online pornography. Paasonen dicusses the development of online porn, focusing on the figure of the porn consumer, and considers user-generated content and amateur porn. She maps out the modality of online porn as hyperbolic, excessive, stylized, and repetitive, arguing that literal readings of the genre misunderstand its dynamics and appeal. And she analyzes viral videos and extreme and shock pornogaphy, arguing for the centrality of disgust and shame in the affective dynamics of porn. Paasonen's analysis makes clear the crucial role of media technologies -- digital production tools and networked communications in particular -- n the forms that porn takes, the resonances it stirs, and the experiences it makes possible.

Carnal Resonance: Affect and Online Pornography

Introduction: Pornification and the Education of Desire, Susanna Paasonen, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland, Kaarina Nikunen, University of Tampere, Finland and Laura Saarenmaa, University of Tampere, Finland Part 1: PORN HISTORIES 1. The Golden Age of Porn: Nostalgia and History in Cinema, Susanna Paasonen and Laura Saarenmaa 2. Let Me Tell Ya 'Bout Black Chicks: Interracial Desire and Black Women in 1980s Video Pornography, Mireille Miller-Young, University of California 3. Pinups, Retro-Chic, and the Consumption of Irony, Nathan Scott Epley, University of Northern Iowa Part 2: PORN CULTURES 4. Gay Men and the Pornification of Everyday Life, Sharif Mowlabocus, University of Sussex 5. Cosmo Girls Talk: Blurring Boundaries of Porn and Sex, Kaarina Nikunen 6. Making Porn into Art, Kerstin Mey, University of Ulster 7. How Unprofessional: The Profitable Partnership of Amateur Porn and Celebrity Culture, Kevin Esch, Tulane University and Vicki Mayer, Tulane University Part 3: PORN MEDIA 8. Sexed Authorship and Pornographic Address in Music Video, Diane Railton, University of Teesside and Paul Watson, University of Teesside 9. Outdoor Pornification: Advertising Heterosexuality in the Street, Leena-Maija Rossi, University of Helsinki, Finland 10. Insatiable Sluts and Almost Gay Guys: Bisexuality in Porn Magazines, Jenny Kangasvuo, University of Oulu, Finland 11. Bend Over Boyfriend: Anal Sex Instructional Videos for Women, Michelle Carne, American University EPILOGUE 12. Porn Futures, Susanna Paasonen

Pornification: sex and sexuality in media culture

Our encounters with websites, avatars, videos, mobile apps, discussion forums, GIFs, and nonhuman intelligent agents allow us to experience sensations of connectivity, interest, desire, and attachment -- as well as detachment, boredom, fear, and shame. Some affective online encounters may arouse complex, contradictory feelings that resist dualistic distinctions. In this book, leading scholars examine the fluctuating and altering dynamics of affect that give shape to online connections and disconnections. Doing so, they tie issues of circulation and connectivity to theorizations of networked affect. Their diverse investigations -- considering subjects that range from online sexual dynamics to the liveliness of computer code -- demonstrate the value of affect theories for Internet studies. The contributors investigate networked affect in terms of intensity, sensation, and value. They explore online intensities that range from Tumblr practices in LGBTQ communities to visceral reactions to animated avatars; examine the affective materiality of software in such platforms as steampunk culture and nonprofit altporn; and analyze the ascription of value to online activities including the GTD ("getting things done") movement and the accumulation of personal digital materials. ContributorsJames Ash, Alex Cho, Jodi Dean, Melissa Gregg, Ken Hillis, Kylie Jarrett, Tero Karppi, Stephen Maddison, Susanna Paasonen, Jussi Parikka, Michael Petit, Jennifer Pybus, Jenny Sundn, Veronika Tzankova

Networked Affect

The blurred boundaries between producers and consumers and the increased centrality of user-generated content have been seen as characteristic of Web 2.0 and contemporary media culture at large. In the context of online pornography, this has been manifested in the popularity of amateur pornography and alt porn sites that encourage user interaction. Netporn criticism has recently formed an arena for thinking through such transformations. Aiming to depart from the binary logic characterizing porn debates to date, netporn criticism nevertheless revokes a set of divisions marking the amateur apart from the professional, the alternative from the mainstream and the independent from the commercial. At the same time, such categories are very much in motion on Web 2.0 platforms. Addressing amateur pornography in terms of immaterial and affective labor, this article argues for the need to find less dualistic frameworks for conceptualizing pornography as an element of media culture.

Labors of Love: Netporn, Web 2.0, and the Meanings of Amateurism

This chapter contains sections titled: The Shape of Affect, Queer Analytics, Archive and the Recollection-Image, Queer Reverb, Notes, References

Susanna Paasonen

Papers

Carnal Resonance: Affect and Online Pornography

Pornification: sex and sexuality in media culture

Networked Affect

Labors of Love: Netporn, Web 2.0, and the Meanings of Amateurism

Queer Reverb: Tumblr, Affect, Time