Media Archaeology, Cultural Techniques, and the Middle Ages: An Approach to the Study of Media before the Media

Abstract

This article surveys recent work in media archaeology, explicates the related theory of cultural techniques, and considers the utility of these recent developments in new German media theory to the analysis of medieval and early modern mediality. In doing so, the article also attends to disciplinary similarities between media studies and medieval and early modern studies. The aim of the article is neither to suggest a hybridization of these fields nor to systematize the approaches of media archaeology and the study of cultural techniques, but rather to highlight productive points of contact, contention, and possible exchange, and to indicate avenues for future research on insufficiently studied topics in medieval and early modern mediality. As a point of reference for this theoretical overview, the article focuses on Nicholas of Cusa’s treatise On the Vision of God (De visione Dei, 1453) and mentions other examples from medieval German literature and culture where relevant.