Arthur Rackham, “Siegfried kills the dragon Fafnir”. Wikimedia Commons.
Dr. Winthrop-Young contributed a chapter titled “Wotan’s Stormtroopers and the Total Art Machine: Kittler’s Ring of the Nibelung” to Wagner in Context (Cambridge University Press) edited by David Trippett.
The chapter analyzes the idiosyncratic take of German media theorist Friedrich Kittler on Richard Wagner’s Ring tetralogy, with a special focus on military and media-technological aspects. From watery beginnings to fiery endings, Wagner stages a large-scale movement from noise to music and back, while also incorporating 19th-century changes in military tactics.
