An interdisciplinary study that traces contemporary
notions of "the web" to their origins long before the
Internet came into being.
This compelling new interdisciplinary study investigates
the scientific and cultural roots of contemporary
conceptions of the network, including computer information
systems, the human nervous system, and communications
technology. Laura Otis, neuroscientist, literary scholar,
and recent recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship,
demonstrates that the image of the network is centuries
old; it is by no means a modern notion. Placing current
comparisons of nerve and computer networks in perspective,
Otis explores early analogies linking nerves and telegraphs
and demonstrates the influence that nineteenth-century
neurobiologists, engineers, and fiction writers influenced
each other's ideas about communication.
The interdisciplinary sweep of this book is impressive.
Otis focuses simultaneously on literary works by such
authors as George Eliot, Bram Stoker, Henry James, and Mark
Twain and on the scientific and technological achievements
of such pioneers as Luigi Galvani, Hermann von Helmholtz,
Charles Babbage, Samuel Morse, and Werner von Siemens.
This unique juxtaposition of physiology, engineering,
and literature reveals the common thoughts shared by
writers in widely diverse fields and suggests that our
current comparisons of nerve and computer networks may not
only enhance but shape our understanding of both
neurobiology and technology.
Highly accessible and jargon-free, Networking will
appeal to general readers as well as to scholars in the
fields of interdisciplinary studies, nineteenth-century
literature, and the history of science and technology.
Contents
- Introduction 1
- Ch. 1 The Language of the Nerves 11
- Ch. 2 The Metaphoric Web 49
- Ch. 3 The Webs of Middlemarch 81
- Ch. 4 The Language of the Wires 120
- Ch. 5 Two Telegraphers Unhappy with Their Nerves
147
- Ch. 6 A Web without Wires 180
- Conclusion: Wired Thoughts 220
- Notes 227
- Bibliography 249
- Index 261