Toward a genealogy of a cold war communication sciences
The strange loops of Leo and Norbert Wiener
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12977926 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Benjamin Peters (0000-0002-5298-7375, University of Tulsa, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 31-43 |
| Publication date | 2013-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Russian Journal of Communication (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1940-9427 • E-ISSN: 1940-9419 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/19409419.2013.775544 |
| OpenAlex | W2031198432 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 21 |
A modest footnote in the mid-century annals of digital communication sciences, this article observes several strange loops in the dual biographies of Norbert Wiener, a primary founder of cybernetics – an American-born computer-compatible communication science that later took root in the Soviet Union – and his father, Leo Wiener, a Byelostock émigré who began Slavic studies in America. It proceeds in two parts: first, a biographical reflection on Norbert Wiener's method by analogy, which he first developed under his father as a youth, and second, a reflection on how Wiener's mature cybernetics combine analogy, feedback, and their contradictions ripe in biographical mind–body tensions. Among other notes, this article contends that the origins of a leading theory of digital communication may best be understood not as a disembodied abstraction of information, but rather in the messy world of biographical influences that helped usher in a cold war era of calculating communication
Cold war · Genealogy · Political science · Cybernetics and Technology in Society · German History and Society · History · Law · Visual Culture and Art Theory
The Cybernetic Brain
From Newspeak to Cyberspeak
How We Became Posthuman
The Cybernetics Group
Cybernetic Revolutionaries
Metaphors We Live By
Where are the Cyborgs in Cybernetics
The Sociological Imagination
Behavior, Purpose and Teleology
The sociological imagination
Primate Visions
From Information Theory to French Theory
The Ontology of the Enemy
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |