The Violence of the Letter
Toward a Theory of Writing
Abstract
The emergence of the alphabet in ancient Greece, usually heralded as the first step in the inexorable march toward reason and progress, in fact signaled the introduction of a chance technology that hijacked the future, with devastating consequences for humanity. By investigating an array of cultural artifacts, ranging from Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey to the Oracle at Delphi to Luther's challenge to the Church, this book demonstrates how the apparently benign emergence of writing made possible far-ranging systems of organized domination and unprecedented levels of violence. The Violence of the Letter considers how a twenty-six-letter code changed the face of the world, and not always for the better.
Keywords
literary theory, writing, alphabet, literacy, colonialism, capitalism, Derrida, Marx, Havelock, Ong, Althusser, critical theory, French theory, Foucault, violence, imperialism, Western civilization, oral culture, indigenous studies, postcolonial theory, settler colonial theory, culturalstudies, world history, Empire, antiquity, history of writing, Lévi-Strauss, printing press, Luther, monotheism, Oedipus complex, Oedipus Rex, Oedipus Tyrannus, oracle at Delphi, Pythia, schooling, neuropsychology, media archaeology, media studies, media theory, media ecologyDOI
10.3998/mpub.12406894ISBN
9780472075911, 9780472055913, 9780472903238Publisher
University of Michigan PressPublisher website
https://www.press.umich.edu/Publication date and place
2023Classification
Philosophy
Philosophy of language
Literary theory
Writing systems, alphabets