Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T22:16:10.830Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 11 - Alternating Currents: Electricity, Humanism, and Resistance

from Part II - Historical, Political, and Cultural Contexts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2022

Paul Devlin
Affiliation:
United States Merchant Marine Academy, New York
Get access

Summary

Throughout his fiction and nonfiction, Ralph Ellison explores the coexisting potentials of electricity, playing rhetorically on its capacity to kill, to harm, or to heal. He frames this ambivalence as an opportunity for reflection and for action, urging his readers to realize that the potentials of technology reside in human decisions. This chapter claims that Ellison’s rich electrical imagery can expand understandings of his aesthetic engagement with the broader themes of technology and humanism. Drawing on his published and unpublished works—including an unpublished alternative to the hospital scene in Invisible Man—this chapter argues that Ellison’s narratives can shed light on persisting debates about the relationship between human life and technological systems.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×