J M Van Der Laan
Biographic Data
| ID | 4929290 |
|---|---|
| NAME | J M Van Der Laan |
| GIVEN NAMES | J M |
| FAMILY NAME | Van Der Laan |
| SIGNATURE | VAN DER LAAN J M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Illinois State University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Narratives of Technology
This book documents and investigates the stories we have told and continue to tell about technology-now the dominant feature of our civilization-in fiction, non-fiction, film, and advertising. It answ
The Faustian Century
New essays revealing the enduring significance of the story made famous in the 1587 Faustbuch and providing insights into the forces that gave the sixteenth century its distinct character. The Reformation and Renaissance, though segregated into distinct disciplines today, interacted and clashed intimately in Faust, the great figure that attained European prominence in the anonymous 1587 Historia von D. Johann Fausten. The original Faust behind Go…
Language and Being Human in Technology
This essay considers the analysis Jacques Ellul carried out about the devaluation of language. This investigation also explores the consequences of that devaluation (or humiliation as Ellul called it) wrought by our orientation to technology. Our existence in technology transforms language and our use of it, shifting emphasis as well to the visual image. The technological mindset encourages a disregard for language. It entails as well the disuse …
Faust und das Böse
Frankenstein as Science Fiction and Fact
Often called the first of its kind, Frankenstein paved the way for science fiction writing. Its depiction of a then impossible scientific feat has in our time become possible and is essentially recognizable in what we now refer to as bioengineering, biomedicine, or biotechnology. The fiction of Frankenstein has as it were given way to scientific fact. Of more importance, however, is the challenge Mary Shelley’s novel presents to the ostensibly hi…
How the Internet Shapes Religious Life, or the Medium Is Itself the Message
The Internet has become a resource for everyone for everything. It is accordingly now also a source of sermons and much more for pastors of churches in the USA. In consequence, the Internet shapes and alters how pastors and parishioners practice their religion. Because “the medium is the message,” as Marshall McLuhan observed, Internet sermons necessarily reflect and convey something of their Internet source. So, too, the nature and content relig…
“Is it Live, or is it Memorex?”
Our reception and perception, our experience of music, has been profoundly determined by our technological devices and media. Whatever music we happen to like and listen to, we can hardly experience it today apart from its production and reproduction in and through technology. The effects of technology on making and hearing music require critical analysis. Because of the pervasive role of technology, music today is almost entirely mediated and me…
Machines and Human Beings in the Movies
Over the years, many movies have presented on-screen a struggle between machines and human beings. Typically, the machines have come to rule and threaten the existence of humanity. They must be conquered to ensure the survival of and to secure the freedom of the human race. Although these movies appear to expose the dangers of an autonomous and hegemonic technology and to champion the human being, they do not. Humans do not in the end triumph ove…
Neil Postman and the Critique of Technology (In Memory of Neil Postman Who Died on October 5, 2003)
This (by no means exhaustive) survey of Postman’s work reflects on his penetrating analyses of contemporary technology. He focused attention on the ways technology today, especially the television and the computer, inevitably change us. The essential questions he asks us to ask (and answer) are, How does technology affect us? Is it for good or ill? and Must we accept all technological advances? Postman recognized the current dominance and autonom…
Temptation and Seduction in the Technological Milieu
Jacques Ellul’s work on propaganda provides the basis for this analysis of life in technology. Advertising and the mass media rely on temptation and seduction and create a constant flow of propaganda, all of which serve the technological system. Propaganda aims to condition and regulate us so that we participate in and adapt ourselves to a desired pattern, specifically an existence adjusted to and in accord with the technological milieu. Technolo…
Plastic Words
Taking as its point of departure the works of Jacques Ellul, Sven Birkerts, George Steiner, Uwe Poerksen, and others, this article explores the status of language in a technicized civilization. It is argued that language has devolved under the impact of technology, particularly in the dimension of values and ethics. This diagnosis points to the way from which a possible cure may emerge
Faust the Technological Mastermind
Narratives of Technology
This book documents and investigates the stories we have told and continue to tell about technology-now the dominant feature of our civilization-in fiction, non-fiction, film, and advertising. It answ
Plastic Words
Taking as its point of departure the works of Jacques Ellul, Sven Birkerts, George Steiner, Uwe Poerksen, and others, this article explores the status of language in a technicized civilization. It is argued that language has devolved under the impact of technology, particularly in the dimension of values and ethics. This diagnosis points to the way from which a possible cure may emerge
Faust the Technological Mastermind
Neil Postman and the Critique of Technology (In Memory of Neil Postman Who Died on October 5, 2003)
This (by no means exhaustive) survey of Postman’s work reflects on his penetrating analyses of contemporary technology. He focused attention on the ways technology today, especially the television and the computer, inevitably change us. The essential questions he asks us to ask (and answer) are, How does technology affect us? Is it for good or ill? and Must we accept all technological advances? Postman recognized the current dominance and autonom…
Temptation and Seduction in the Technological Milieu
Jacques Ellul’s work on propaganda provides the basis for this analysis of life in technology. Advertising and the mass media rely on temptation and seduction and create a constant flow of propaganda, all of which serve the technological system. Propaganda aims to condition and regulate us so that we participate in and adapt ourselves to a desired pattern, specifically an existence adjusted to and in accord with the technological milieu. Technolo…
Machines and Human Beings in the Movies
Over the years, many movies have presented on-screen a struggle between machines and human beings. Typically, the machines have come to rule and threaten the existence of humanity. They must be conquered to ensure the survival of and to secure the freedom of the human race. Although these movies appear to expose the dangers of an autonomous and hegemonic technology and to champion the human being, they do not. Humans do not in the end triumph ove…
“Is it Live, or is it Memorex?”
Our reception and perception, our experience of music, has been profoundly determined by our technological devices and media. Whatever music we happen to like and listen to, we can hardly experience it today apart from its production and reproduction in and through technology. The effects of technology on making and hearing music require critical analysis. Because of the pervasive role of technology, music today is almost entirely mediated and me…
How the Internet Shapes Religious Life, or the Medium Is Itself the Message
The Internet has become a resource for everyone for everything. It is accordingly now also a source of sermons and much more for pastors of churches in the USA. In consequence, the Internet shapes and alters how pastors and parishioners practice their religion. Because “the medium is the message,” as Marshall McLuhan observed, Internet sermons necessarily reflect and convey something of their Internet source. So, too, the nature and content relig…
Frankenstein as Science Fiction and Fact
Often called the first of its kind, Frankenstein paved the way for science fiction writing. Its depiction of a then impossible scientific feat has in our time become possible and is essentially recognizable in what we now refer to as bioengineering, biomedicine, or biotechnology. The fiction of Frankenstein has as it were given way to scientific fact. Of more importance, however, is the challenge Mary Shelley’s novel presents to the ostensibly hi…
Language and Being Human in Technology
This essay considers the analysis Jacques Ellul carried out about the devaluation of language. This investigation also explores the consequences of that devaluation (or humiliation as Ellul called it) wrought by our orientation to technology. Our existence in technology transforms language and our use of it, shifting emphasis as well to the visual image. The technological mindset encourages a disregard for language. It entails as well the disuse …
Faust und das Böse
The Faustian Century
New essays revealing the enduring significance of the story made famous in the 1587 Faustbuch and providing insights into the forces that gave the sixteenth century its distinct character. The Reformation and Renaissance, though segregated into distinct disciplines today, interacted and clashed intimately in Faust, the great figure that attained European prominence in the anonymous 1587 Historia von D. Johann Fausten. The original Faust behind Go…
Narratives of Technology
This book documents and investigates the stories we have told and continue to tell about technology-now the dominant feature of our civilization-in fiction, non-fiction, film, and advertising. It answ
Sociology (7 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · Art (5 works) · Media, Communication, and Education (5 works) · Aesthetics (3 works) · Epistemology (3 works) · Law (3 works) · Political science (3 works) · Psychology (3 works)