Screen LibraryHieroglyphic modernisms : writing and new media in the twentieth century /
In the British Museum, one object attracts more tourists than any other: the Rosetta Stone. The decipherment of the Stone by Jean-François Champollion and the discovery of King Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922 contributed to creating a worldwide vogue for all things Egyptian. This fascination was sha...
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| Main Authors: | |
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| Published: |
Edinburgh University Press Ltd,
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| Publisher Address: | Edinburgh : |
| Publication Dates: | [2018] |
| Literature type: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Series: |
Edinburgh critical studies in modernist culture
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| Subjects: | |
| Summary: |
In the British Museum, one object attracts more tourists than any other: the Rosetta Stone. The decipherment of the Stone by Jean-François Champollion and the discovery of King Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922 contributed to creating a worldwide vogue for all things Egyptian. This fascination was shared by early-twentieth-century authors who invoked Egyptian writing to paint a more complicated picture of European interest in non-Western languages. Hieroglyphs can be found everywhere in modernist novels and in discussions of silent film, appearing at moments when writers and theorists seek to understand the similarities or differences between writing and new recording technologies. Hieroglyphic Modernisms explores this conjunction of hieroglyphs and modernist fiction and film, revealing how the challenge of new media spurred a fertile interplay among practitioners of old and new media forms. Showing how novelists and film theorists in the modernist period defined their respective media in relation to each other, the book shifts the focus in modernism from China, poetry, and the avant-garde to Egypt, narrative, and film. |
| Carrier Form: | vii, 264 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 242-256) and index. |
| ISBN: |
9781474424776 1474424775 |
| Index Number: | PN56 |
| CLC: |
I561.065 I109.9 |
| Call Number: | I109.9/S375 |
| Contents: | Misreading Egypt -- The Hieroglyphics of Character -- Sound Enclosures -- The `Essence' of Egypt -- Solving the Problem of Babel -- Matrices and Metaverses -- Coda: The Rosetta Stone. |