Technoculture: The Retro Issue

Technoculture (ISSN 1938-0526) is an independent annual peer-reviewed journal. Publishing both critical and creative works that explore the ways in which technology impacts this (or any) society, with a broad definition of technology.

Technoculture seek creative works that use new media and/or are on the subject of technology, and essays from a broad a range of academic disciplines that focus on cultural studies of technology. Essays published examine the topic “technology and society,” or, perhaps,“technologies and societies.”

For Volume 3 (2013), The Retro Issue, the editors are particularly seeking essays and creative works that focus on lost, ancient, old or dead technologies, technologies that no one uses, or very few people still employ. Topics could include depictions of technologies that treat a wide range of subjects related to the social sciences and humanities. These subjects might include:

• technologies once popular that are no longer used, such as 8-track tape
• film and television as technologies (especially in the early days of television and film)
• celebrities’ use of technology in a given historical moment, such as the early days of television or the heyday of radio
• politics and technology, especially historical approaches
• music production and dissemination, especially historical approaches (such as Listz’ transcriptions of entire Wagner operas and Beethoven symphonies)
• visual artists and their use of (or flight from) given technologies, especially historical approaches
• literary depictions of technologies (especially in works from other decades than our own)
• computer/video gaming (older games, rather than newer games)
• the dissemination of the arts via technology to broad or to specialized audiences in particular historical moments
• the disappearance of a given technology or technologies and what that disappearance/disappearances means/mean for the archival issues that surround the humanities.
• sports and sports figures of the past
• memorabilia and collectibles from the past

In particular, the editors are interested in a conception of “technology” and the “humanist impulse” that pushes beyond contemporary American culture and its fascination with computers; they seek papers that deal with any technology or technologies in any number of historical periods from any relevant theoretical perspective with a particular focus on old, dead and lost technologies for this issue.

Technocluture is not interested in “how to” pedagogical papers that deal with the use of technology in the classroom.

Technoculture will publish scholarly/critical papers in the latest MLA citation style, but also creative works including poetry and creative non-fiction are of interest to us. They will publish art work and especially media designed for display/dissemination on a computer monitor including still images, video or audio.

Submissions for Volume 3 (2013) accepted until 31 August 2013.