In this Book
- The Perversity of Things: Hugo Gernsback on Media, Tinkering, and Scientifiction
- Book
- 2016
- Published by: University of Minnesota Press
- Series: Electronic Mediations
In 1905, a young Jewish immigrant form Luxembourg founded an electrical supply shop in New York. This inventor, writer, and publisher Hugo Gernsback would later become famous for launching the first science fiction magazine Amazing Stories in 1926. But while science fiction’s annual Hugo Awards were named in his honor, there has been surprisingly little understanding of how the genre began among a community of tinkerers all drawn to Gernsback’s vision of understanding the future of media through making. In The Perversity of Things, Grant Wythoff makes available texts by Hugo Gernsback that were foundational both for science fiction and the emergence of media studies.
Wythoff argues that Hugo Gernsback developed a means of describing and assessing the cultural impact of emerging media long before media studies became an academic discipline. From editorials and blueprints to media histories, critical essays, and short fiction, Wythoff has collected a wide range of Gernsback’s writings that have been out of print since their magazine debut in the early 1900s. These articles include such topics as television, the regulation of wireless/radio, war and technology, speculative futures, media-archaeological curiosities like the dynamophone, hypnobioscope, and more. Althoughter, this collection shows how Gernsback’s publications evolved from an electrical parts catalog to a full-fledged literary genre.
The Perversity of Things aims to reverse the widespread misunderstanding of Gernsback within the history of science fiction criticism. Through painstaking research and extensive annotations and commentary, Wythoff reintroduces us to Hugo Gernsback and the origins of science fiction itself.
Table of Contents
- Chronological Contents
- pp. x-xii
- How to Use This Book
- pp. xiii-xiv
- Acknowledgments
- pp. xv-xvi
- Introduction
- pp. 1-59
- A New Interrupter
- pp. 60-61
- The Dynamophone
- pp. 62-64
- The Aerophone Number
- pp. 65-66
- The Wireless Joker
- pp. 67-68
- The Wireless Association of America
- pp. 69-72
- [Editorials]
- pp. 73-76
- Signaling to Mars
- pp. 77-82
- Television and the Telephot
- pp. 83-89
- The Roberts Wireless Bill
- pp. 90-92
- From The Wireless Telephone
- pp. 93-98
- The Born and the Mechanical Inventor
- pp. 99-107
- The Alexander Wireless Bill
- pp. 108-109
- Wireless and the Amateur: A Retrospect
- pp. 110-112
- From A Treatise on Wireless Telegraphy
- pp. 115-128
- The Radioson Detector
- pp. 129-134
- Phoney Patent Offizz
- pp. 152-154
- Hearing through Your Teeth
- pp. 155-157
- The Future of Wireless
- pp. 158-160
- Imagination versus Facts
- pp. 161-162
- What to Invent
- pp. 163-164
- The Perversity of Things
- pp. 165-167
- War and the Radio Amateur
- pp. 168-170
- Silencing America’s Wireless
- pp. 171-173
- The Magnetic Storm
- pp. 174-189
- Amateur Radio Restored
- pp. 190-193
- Why “Radio Amateur News” Is Here
- pp. 194-195
- Grand Opera by Wireless
- pp. 196-199
- The Future of Radio
- pp. 200-201
- Thomas A. Edison Speaks to You
- pp. 202-213
- Interplanetarian Wireless
- pp. 214-217
- The Physiophone
- pp. 218-224
- Science and Invention
- pp. 225-226
- An American Jules Verne
- pp. 227-231
- Learn and Work While You Sleep
- pp. 232-236
- From Radio For All
- pp. 237-244
- 10,000 Years Hence
- pp. 245-250
- Radio Broadcasting
- pp. 251-252
- Human Progress
- pp. 253-255
- Predicting Future Inventions
- pp. 269-271
- The “New” Science and Invention
- pp. 272-275
- Are We Intelligent?
- pp. 276-277
- A Radio-Controlled Television Plane
- pp. 278-281
- The Dark Age of Science
- pp. 282-283
- The Isolator
- pp. 284-286
- A New Sort of Magazine
- pp. 287-288
- The Lure of Scientifiction
- pp. 289-290
- Fiction versus Facts
- pp. 291-293
- Editorially Speaking
- pp. 294-295
- Is Radio at a Standstill?
- pp. 296-298
- The Detectorium
- pp. 299-302
- Imagination and Reality
- pp. 303-304
- The “Pianorad”
- pp. 305-308
- Edison and Radio
- pp. 309-311
- Why the Radio Set Builder?
- pp. 312-314
- New Radio “Things” Wanted
- pp. 315-318
- After Television—What?
- pp. 319-321
- Wired versus Space Radio
- pp. 322-324
- The Electric Duel
- pp. 325-326
- Radio Enters into a New Phase
- pp. 327-329
- The Short-Wave Era
- pp. 330-332
- The Killing Flash
- pp. 333-336
- How to Write “Science” Stories
- pp. 337-341
- Science Fictionversus Science Faction
- pp. 342-343
- Television Technique
- pp. 344-346
- Wonders of the Machine Age
- pp. 347-353