{"product_id":"seeing-things-virtual-aesthetics-in-victorian-culture-9781501783678","title":"Seeing Things: Virtual Aesthetics in Victorian Culture","description":"\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 visuality 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\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eAmanda Shubert is Teaching Faculty in English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Cornell University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51720800567570,"sku":"9781501783678","price":159.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_103c1a0e-4afc-4a62-a3f3-f76ce9c89e95.jpg?v=1762936735","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/seeing-things-virtual-aesthetics-in-victorian-culture-9781501783678","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}