This paper seeks to introduce cultural techniques to an Anglophone readership. Specifically geared towards an Anglophone readership, the paper relates the re-emergence of cultural techniques to the changing intellectual constellation of postwar Germany. More specifically, it traces how the concept evolved from – and reacted against – so-called German media theory, a decidedly anti-hermeneutic and anti-humanist current of thought frequently associated with the work of Friedrich Kittler. Post-hermeneutic rather than anti-hermeneutic in its outlook, the reconceptualization of cultural techniques aims at (...) presenting them as chains of operations that link humans, things, media and even animals. To investigate cultural techniques is to shift the analytic gaze from ontological distinctions to the ontic operations that gave rise to the former in the first place. As Siegert points out, this shift recalls certain concurrent developments within the North American posthumanities; the paper therefore also includes a discussion of the similarities and differences between German and North American posthumanism. (shrink)

This e-Special Issue of Theory, Culture & Society focuses on the German media theorist Friedrich Kittler’s impact across the field of humanities. By including Kittler’s own texts and other scholars’ articles that continue or comment on Kittler’s work, the editors have sought to address the core aspects of Kittler’s provocative insights into how media technologies underpin our cultural formations. The editorial introduction sets out key sections on technology, aesthetics, ontology and epistemology, identified as the significant axes where Kittler opens up (...) traditional notions of art and humanities. The sections also develop a common theme having to do with a media material understanding of aesthetics and philosophical determinations of the concept of media from Ancient Greeks to computational culture. (shrink)