{"title":"Amanda Shubert","description":"Amanda Shubert is Teaching Faculty in English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.","products":[{"product_id":"seeing-things-virtual-aesthetics-in-victorian-culture-paperback","title":"Seeing Things: Virtual Aesthetics in Victorian Culture - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA cultural history of nineteenth-century media imaginaries, \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSeeing Things\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e tells the story of how Victorians experienced the virtual images created by modern optical technologies--magic lanterns, stereoscopes, phenakistoscopes, museum displays, and illusionistic stage magic. \u003c\/b\u003eAmanda Shubert argues that interactions with these devices gave rise to a new virtual aesthetics--an understanding of visual and perceptual encounters with things that are not really there. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe popularization of Victorian optical media redefined virtuality as a rational mode of spectatorship that taught audiences to distinguish illusion from reality. As an aesthetic expression of a civilizational ideal that defined the capacity to see but not believe, to be entertained without being deceived, it became a sign of western supremacy. By tracing the development of virtual aesthetics through nineteenth-century writings, from the novels of George Eliot and Charles Dickens to popular science writing and imperial travelogues, \u003ci\u003eSeeing Things\u003c\/i\u003e recovers a formative period of technological and literary innovation to explain how optical media not only anticipated cinema but became a paradigmatic media aesthetic of western modernity.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51248330965215,"sku":"9781501784941","price":62.91,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/7yikjFTX2K9781501784941.webp?v=1787359935"}],"url":"https:\/\/blackandbarhe.com\/collections\/amanda-shubert.oembed","provider":"Black \u0026 Barhe Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}