A Networked Self and Birth, Life, Death

We are born, live, and die with technologies. This book is about the role technology plays in sustaining narratives of living, dying, and coming to be. Contributing authors examine how technologies connect, disrupt, or help us reorganize ways of parenting and nurturing life. They further consider how technology sustains our ways of thinking and being, hopefully reconciling the distance between who we are and who we aspire to be. Finally, they address the role technology plays in helping us come to terms with death, looking at technologically enhanced memorials, online rituals of mourning, and patterns of grief enabled through technology. Ultimately, this volume is about using technology to reimagine the art of life.

"Now that the ‘networked self’ has come of age, we need to deal with existential questions about online personhood, adulthood, and parenthood. Internet technologies are transforming everyday practices revolving around birth, friendship, family life, memory and death. This sparkling collection edited by Zizi Papacharissi highlights many profound aspects of this transformation. An eye-opener for every academic interested in online affects!" -Jose van Dijck, Utrecht University, The Netherlands