{"product_id":"the-aesthetics-of-stealth-isbn-9780262549783","title":"The Aesthetics of Stealth","description":"\u003cb\u003eHow performances of tactical imperceptibility—or “stealth”—have become a key political practice in digital culture as a means of escaping surveillance and tracking technologies.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn\u003ci\u003e The Aesthetics of Stealth\u003c\/i\u003e, Toni Pape proposes the first aesthetic and cultural theory of stealth, a mode of political action. The primary goal of stealth is to act efficiently while remaining imperceptible. Pape begins with the observation that the desire for stealth is a sociocultural response to digital media culture, due to digital technologies’ unprecedented ability to track individual behavior. He argues that stealth operates as a cross-media aesthetic that can be observed in video games, television, and video art alike, particularly in so-called stealth video games, a genre that requires players to accomplish missions without being detected by in-game enemies.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDrawing on theories of perception, digital aesthetics, and video game studies, Pape proposes an analytical map of different modes of stealth such as “sneaking stealth,” “social stealth,” or “magical stealth.” The author’s findings are brought into dialogue with research in the fields of software studies, surveillance studies, and political theory to establish the political importance of stealth. While stealth is a resistance to pervasive sensing and tracking, Pape also shows that the principles of stealth politics are closely connected to urgent concerns like (cyber)warfare and other digital practices of targeting and surveillance that operate to entrench cultural values like heteronormativity and white supremacy.Acknowledgments\u003cbr\u003e1   Stealth Parade: Introduction, Overview, Problematization\u003cbr\u003e2   Digital Prehensions: Two Brief Genealogies of Stealth\u003cbr\u003e3   Stealth: A Co-evolution of Technology and Culture\u003cbr\u003e4   Technostealth: A Baroque Disposition\u003cbr\u003e5   The Politicality of Imperceptibility, Now and Then: An Interlude\u003cbr\u003e6   Sneaking Stealth: The Tracking Shot and Relational Imperceptibility\u003cbr\u003e7   Surveillance Stealth 1: Conspiracy Thinking and Ubiquitous War\u003cbr\u003e8   Surveillance Stealth 2: Overcoding World History and the World as Blackbox\u003cbr\u003e9   Magical Stealth: Queering Sourcery and Relational Ethics in Dishonored\u003cbr\u003e10   Social Stealth: Camp Aesthetic, Whiteness, and Artificial Stupidity in Hitman\u003cbr\u003e11   Stealthy Together: Coda on Insistent Belonging\u003cbr\u003eNotes\u003cbr\u003eWorks Cited\u003cbr\u003eIndex“Pape’s in-depth analysis of video games and television shows maps the ways an aesthetic of stealth reveals techniques that offer freedom from the security apparatus.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Choice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“A cogent account of the algorithmic, aesthetic, and technopolitical fantasies of stealth, the perils of (im)perception and (mis)recognition, and the strategies for survival under these regimes of surveillance and subterfuge.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Edmond Y. Chang, Associate Professor of English, Ohio University\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThe Aesthetics of Stealth\u003c\/i\u003e offers a unique and compelling perspective on our contemporary culture. Through subtle close readings, the author shows how stealth is a defining aesthetic quality of media today.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Jay David Bolter, Wesley Professor of New Media, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In this spectacular book, Toni Pape shines a light on stealth as a style or mode of existence: a way of relating to the conditions of our high-tech world. This is a vital and provocative account.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Colin Milburn, Gary Snyder Chair in Science and the Humanities, University of California, Davis; author of \u003ci\u003eRespawn: Gamers, Hackers, and Technogenic Life\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eToni Pape is a cultural theorist and media scholar at the University of Amsterdam. His previous books include \u003ci\u003eFigures of Time\u003c\/i\u003e and the coauthored \u003ci\u003eNocturnal Fabulations\u003c\/i\u003e. He is a member of the editorial boards of \u003ci\u003eNECSUS: European Journal of Media Studies\u003c\/i\u003e and the Immediations book series at Punctum Press.","brand":"The MIT Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304612647141,"sku":"NP9780262549783","price":40.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780262549783.jpg?v=1767738018","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-aesthetics-of-stealth-isbn-9780262549783","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}