The Medium Picture is Now Under Contract
After years of tweaking and shopping the proposal, Zero Books has acquiesced to publish my book The Medium Picture. The thing that sold me on them, other than their recent publishing of Steven Shaviro‘s brief-but-brilliant Post-Cinematic Affect, is their statement of purpose:
Contemporary culture has eliminated the concept and public figure of the intellectual. A cretinous anti-intellectualism presides, cheerled by hacks in the pay of multinational corporations who reassure their bored readers that there is no need to rouse themselves from their stupor. Zer0 Books knows that another kind of discourse — intellectual without being academic, popular without being populist — is not only possible: it is already flourishing. Zer0 is convinced that in the unthinking, blandly consensual culture in which we live, critical and engaged theoretical reflection is more important than ever before.
While I can’t completely agree with such a dismal view of contemporary society, I couldn’t state my purposes as a writer any better than that.
The Medium Picture is a history of the future of our relationship with technology. Technological mediation has changed and continues to change our relationships with each other, our information, time, space, and ourselves. It isn’t going to go away. In fact, it’s only going to become more pervasive. The Medium Picture explores these relationships at all levels, from language and literature to television and cell-phones. It’s about mediation, not just technology: It’s about the ripple, not the rock. That is, it’s about the process we undergo with our tools and toys. It calls attention to the effects of ever-expanding mediation and urges the reader to be more mindful of what constitutes authentic experience. It isn’t about relying on technology less, but it is about what relying on it means.
Given their commitment to critical and engaged theoretical reflection, I am happy to announce that I signed The Medium Picture to Zero Books.
Thank you all for your continued interest and support,
And many thanks to the early readers of this material. I’ll never remember everyone, but here are some helpful folks who read early drafts of the proposal and gave invaluable notes and advice: David Patterson, Mark Wieman, Alex Burns, Steven Shaviro, David Barker, David Miller, Matt Schulte, Kristen Sensenig, Matt Bialer, Rebecca Oliver, Kasey Pfaff, Micheal Schandorf, Doug Sery, Erik Davis, John Brockman, Max Brockman, Jason Weidemann, John Oakes, and Doug Rushkoff.
Further Posting:
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Roy Christopher, The Medium Picture. The Medium Picture said: RT @RoyChristopher: My book, 'The Medium Picture', is now under contract with @zer0books: http://royc.org/?p=3944 [...]
Congrats on the deal, Roy. I’m happy for you — I know it’s been a long process. Glad you didn’t give up along the way (I knew you wouldn’t).
Congratulations, Roy! I am looking forward to reading your new book soon. How can I gets mine?
[...] In the midst of a book abt technological mediation, I proposed this talk to #SXSW to work through some of those [...]
Thanks, Mark. It’s been a long process getting the idea sold, now I have to finish the actual writing — another long process.
It’ll be available in the usual places probably sometime next year. William, you know I’ll let you know. : ]
[...] For Nora Ankrum’s recent roundup of SXSW Interactive panels and talks having to do with distance working, “The World is Your Cubicle,” she interviewed about my SXSWi talk Disconnecting the Dots: How Our Devices are Divisive and my book-in-progress, The Medium Picture. [...]
[...] we change our world with our technology for years now, but more so lately as my book-in-progress, The Medium Picture, comes into better focus. This talk itself is brand new and not quite complete. Regardless, I [...]
[...] Roy Christopher yammering on about his recent projects (Follow for Now, Disconnect the Dots, and The Medium Picture) at SXSW 2011. Follow for Now friends Shahriar Shadab filmed and edited edited this [runtime: [...]
[...] the Dots: How Our Devices are Divisive,” as well as in my book-in-progress The Medium Picture is the line we draw at the edge of our comfort zone with new technologies. It’s a line we [...]
[...] a short clip of me yammering on about my recent projects (Follow for Now, Disconnect the Dots, and The Medium Picture) at SXSW 2011. My man Shahriar Shadab filmed and edited this [runtime: 3:07], and Jeff Newelt did [...]
[...] to reassess the year, and 2011 is a joy to revisit. It was easily my best year ever personally. I signed a book deal, spoke at several conferences with some of my best friends, got engaged to a wonderful woman, built [...]
[...] RC: Tell me about the book. I’m avoiding reading it right now as I fear it may out-mode my current book-in-progress. [...]
[...] post is another edited excerpt from my book-in-progress The Medium Picture. Chapter 7, “Disguise the Limit,” discusses desire lines in many of forms, linking [...]
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My main interests are figurative language use and the social impacts of technology. My main goal as a writer is to entertain and as a scientist is to find novelty. I’m more of the former than the latter and more of a fan than a critic.
I'm currently a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Communication at The University of Illinois at Chicago, as well as a doctoral student in Communication Studies at The University of Texas at Austin. I'm also working on a book called The Medium Picture, which is under contract with Zer0 Books and will be out in the near future. This site is where I think aloud about all of the above. Read on »
