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Description
Grounded in over a decade of research including fieldwork, interviews, performance creation, and archival work, Shauna M. MacDonald MacDonald narrates the history and culture of lighthouses as media from the first human use of fire up to the present day.
Each chapter in the book presents an argument for the meanings that accumulated around lighthouses in specific historical eras, told through key figures – human and more-than human – from lighthouse history. Lighthouses, MacDonald contends, have been humanity's constant communicative companions, and they have been communicating for thousands of years – about safety, power, faith, science, control, empire, technology, obsolescence, heritage, and even the future.
Interweaving research, performances, and personal narratives, MacDonald calls on us to listen to lighthouse messages past and present – the good and the bad – and to help tell their stories, along with the stories of lighthouse people, in new ways.
Accessibility Information
Additional accessibility information
- PDF/UA-2, 1.4
- accessibility@bloomsbury.com
Hazards
The publication contains no hazards
Support for non-visual reading
Has alternative text descriptions for images
Navigation
- Page list to go to pages from the print source version
- Elements such as headings, tables, etc for structured navigation
- All or substantially all textual matter is arranged in a single logical reading order
Table of Contents
Introduction: Origin Stories
1. Ancient Beacons
2. Light in the Darkness
3. Golden Age
4. Reflections, Refractions, Diffractions
5. Lighthouses as Heritage Assemblages
6. Out of the Shadows
7. Assemblage Media for the Future
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
Product details
| Published | 10 Dec 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (PDF) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 272 |
| ISBN | 9798216259329 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Illustrations | 19 bw illus |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |















