Although the correspondents of letters, postcards and emails are not, usually, present to one another as they write and read their exchanges, this does not necessarily inhibit affective communication. Indeed, this study demonstrates how physical absence may, in some instances, provide correspondents with intense intimacy and a spiritual, almost telepathic, sense of the other’s presence. While corresponding by letter, postcard or email, readers construe an imaginary, incorporeal body for their correspondents that, in turn, reworks their interlocutor’s self-presentation. In this regard the fantasy of presence reveals a key paradox of cultural communication, namely that material signifiers can be used to produce the experience of incorporeal presence.
Although the correspondents of letters, postcards and emails are not, usually, present to one another as they write and read their exchanges, this does not necessarily inhibit affective communication. Indeed, this study demonstrates how physical absence may, in some instances, provide correspondents with intense intimacy and a spiritual, almost telepathic, sense of the other’s presence. While corresponding by letter, postcard or email, readers construe an imaginary, incorporeal body for their correspondents that, in turn, reworks their interlocutor’s self-presentation. In this regard the fantasy of presence reveals a key paradox of cultural communication, namely that material signifiers can be used to produce the experience of incorporeal presence.
![Letters, Postcards, Email: Technologies of Presence](http://img.images-bn.com/static/redesign/srcs/images/grey-box.png?v11.11.4)
Letters, Postcards, Email: Technologies of Presence
280![Letters, Postcards, Email: Technologies of Presence](http://img.images-bn.com/static/redesign/srcs/images/grey-box.png?v11.11.4)
Letters, Postcards, Email: Technologies of Presence
280Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780415741064 |
---|---|
Publisher: | Taylor & Francis |
Publication date: | 11/08/2013 |
Series: | Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies |
Pages: | 280 |
Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d) |