Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan is Senior Lecturer in the History and Theory of Digital Media at King’s College London.

• Acknowledgments  ixIntroduction. Codification  11. Foundations for Informatics: Technocracy, Philanthropy, and Communications Sciences  212. Pattern Recognition: Data Capture in Colonies, Clinics, and Suburbs  533. Poeticizing Cybernetics: An Informatic Infrastructure for Structural Linguistics  854. Theory for Administrators: The Ambivalent Technocracy of Claude LÉvi-Strauss  1075. Learning to Code: Cybernetics and French Theory  133Conclusion. Coding Today: Toward an Analysis of Cultural Analytics  169Notes  181Bibliography  221Index  245

“Straying away from the familiar itineraries of intellectual history, Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan invites us to take a path less trodden: a detour that allows the reader to revisit famous milestones in the development of cybernetics and digital media, and to connect them to scholarly debates stemming from fields of study as distant as structural anthropology, family therapy, and literary semiology." (The Duke Reader) “Bernard Geoghegan’s Code presents a strong history of how the humanities of the 20th century worked in close connection with communication and information sciences … a rich and insightful analysis.” - Jussi Parikka (Leonardo Reviews) "Anyone interested in the political and ethical dimensions of cybernetics and contemporary social networking will be fascinated by Geoghegan's rich historical and interpretive account of these important and timely subjects. Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates. Graduate students and faculty. Students in two-year technical programs." - J. W. Dauben (Choice) "Geoghegan’s rich and surprising account of the common inheritance shared by information theory and French Theory in the era of liberal technocracy, industrial capitalism, and colonial crisis will change how we think about the nature, risks, and possibilities of data analytics, critical theory, and the digital humanities now and for years to come." - Carolyn Pedwell (Theory, Culture & Society) "This volume will be of interest to scholars, teachers, and students in media and communication studies, anthropology, history of knowledge and ideas, critical data studies, and the humanities more generally. Its lucid style, the focus on personal biographies and relations, as well as the detailed explanation of its use of theoretical and disciplinary concepts in the introduction, make it accessible to the general readership with no prior knowledge of the history of cybernetics." - Tsvetelina Hristova (International Journal of Communication)

Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan is Senior Lecturer in the History and Theory of Digital Media at King’s College London.

• Acknowledgments  ixIntroduction. Codification  11. Foundations for Informatics: Technocracy, Philanthropy, and Communications Sciences  212. Pattern Recognition: Data Capture in Colonies, Clinics, and Suburbs  533. Poeticizing Cybernetics: An Informatic Infrastructure for Structural Linguistics  854. Theory for Administrators: The Ambivalent Technocracy of Claude LÉvi-Strauss  1075. Learning to Code: Cybernetics and French Theory  133Conclusion. Coding Today: Toward an Analysis of Cultural Analytics  169Notes  181Bibliography  221Index  245

“Straying away from the familiar itineraries of intellectual history, Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan invites us to take a path less trodden: a detour that allows the reader to revisit famous milestones in the development of cybernetics and digital media, and to connect them to scholarly debates stemming from fields of study as distant as structural anthropology, family therapy, and literary semiology." (The Duke Reader) “Bernard Geoghegan’s Code presents a strong history of how the humanities of the 20th century worked in close connection with communication and information sciences … a rich and insightful analysis.” - Jussi Parikka (Leonardo Reviews) "Anyone interested in the political and ethical dimensions of cybernetics and contemporary social networking will be fascinated by Geoghegan's rich historical and interpretive account of these important and timely subjects. Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates. Graduate students and faculty. Students in two-year technical programs." - J. W. Dauben (Choice) "Geoghegan’s rich and surprising account of the common inheritance shared by information theory and French Theory in the era of liberal technocracy, industrial capitalism, and colonial crisis will change how we think about the nature, risks, and possibilities of data analytics, critical theory, and the digital humanities now and for years to come." - Carolyn Pedwell (Theory, Culture & Society) "This volume will be of interest to scholars, teachers, and students in media and communication studies, anthropology, history of knowledge and ideas, critical data studies, and the humanities more generally. Its lucid style, the focus on personal biographies and relations, as well as the detailed explanation of its use of theoretical and disciplinary concepts in the introduction, make it accessible to the general readership with no prior knowledge of the history of cybernetics." - Tsvetelina Hristova (International Journal of Communication)

Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan is Senior Lecturer in the History and Theory of Digital Media at King’s College London.

• Acknowledgments  ixIntroduction. Codification  11. Foundations for Informatics: Technocracy, Philanthropy, and Communications Sciences  212. Pattern Recognition: Data Capture in Colonies, Clinics, and Suburbs  533. Poeticizing Cybernetics: An Informatic Infrastructure for Structural Linguistics  854. Theory for Administrators: The Ambivalent Technocracy of Claude LÉvi-Strauss  1075. Learning to Code: Cybernetics and French Theory  133Conclusion. Coding Today: Toward an Analysis of Cultural Analytics  169Notes  181Bibliography  221Index  245

“Straying away from the familiar itineraries of intellectual history, Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan invites us to take a path less trodden: a detour that allows the reader to revisit famous milestones in the development of cybernetics and digital media, and to connect them to scholarly debates stemming from fields of study as distant as structural anthropology, family therapy, and literary semiology." (The Duke Reader) “Bernard Geoghegan’s Code presents a strong history of how the humanities of the 20th century worked in close connection with communication and information sciences … a rich and insightful analysis.” - Jussi Parikka (Leonardo Reviews) "Anyone interested in the political and ethical dimensions of cybernetics and contemporary social networking will be fascinated by Geoghegan's rich historical and interpretive account of these important and timely subjects. Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates. Graduate students and faculty. Students in two-year technical programs." - J. W. Dauben (Choice) "Geoghegan’s rich and surprising account of the common inheritance shared by information theory and French Theory in the era of liberal technocracy, industrial capitalism, and colonial crisis will change how we think about the nature, risks, and possibilities of data analytics, critical theory, and the digital humanities now and for years to come." - Carolyn Pedwell (Theory, Culture & Society) "This volume will be of interest to scholars, teachers, and students in media and communication studies, anthropology, history of knowledge and ideas, critical data studies, and the humanities more generally. Its lucid style, the focus on personal biographies and relations, as well as the detailed explanation of its use of theoretical and disciplinary concepts in the introduction, make it accessible to the general readership with no prior knowledge of the history of cybernetics." - Tsvetelina Hristova (International Journal of Communication)