[Air-L] New Book: The Philosophy of Software: Code and Mediation in the Digital Age

[David Berry]

Colleagues,

I would just like to take this opportunity to let you know that my new monograph is available called The Philosophy of Software: Code and Mediation in the Digital Age (Palgrave Macmillan), ISBN 9780230244184, 216 pages. 

http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=395958  

See below for further information. 

Best regards

David Berry

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Contents

Acknowledgements
1. The Idea of Code
2. What is Code? 
3. Reading and Writing Code
4. Running Code
5. Towards a Phenomenology of Computation
6. Real-Time Streams
Bibliography
Index

Review

'This is a beautifully written book that pulls off the difficult task of introducing the subject of software and the workings of code to the non specialist whilst also providing an original take of the philosophical and the cultural importance of Code in contemporary culture.'
- Michael Bull, University of Sussex, UK

Product Description

The Philosophy of Software is a critical introduction to the subject of code and software, and develops an understanding of its social and philosophical implications in the digital age. The book has been written specifically for people interested in the subject from a non-technical background and provides a lively and interesting analysis of these new media forms. The book argues that software is a tangle, a knot, which ties together the physical and the ephemeral, the material and the ethereal, into a complete system that can be controlled and directed. However, software exceeds our ability to place limits on its entanglement, for it has in the past decade entered the everyday home through electronic augmentation that has replaced the mechanical world of the twentieth century. From washing machines to central heating systems, children's toys to television and video; the old electro-magnetic and servo-mechanical world is being revolutionised by the silent logic of virtual devices. It is time, therefore, to examine our virtual situation.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0230244181/ref=kinw_rke_rti_1




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Dr. David M. Berry
Department of Political and Cultural Studies
Room JC015
James Callaghan Building
Swansea University
Singleton Campus
Swansea
SA2 8PP

Tel: 01792 602633

http://www.swan.ac.uk/staff/academic/ArtsHumanities/berryd/