Carried Away: The Carrier Bag Theory of Media

Abstract

This chapter turns to speculative science-fiction writer Ursula Le Guin’s short 1986 text “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction” for a theory of technics guided by the humble bag and its work of carrying. Using Le Guin’s essay as a vessel for their own thought, Yijun Sun and Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan examine cases in the history of media for evidence of how theories of technology, technics, and techniques realize processes of getting carried away, bringing aloft, and jumbling together. A carrier bag theory of media offers a point of entry to undertheorized objects and processes in the history of media and technology, such as the vacuum tube and carrying techniques, as well as a promising bridge to thinkers such as Gilbert Simondon, Michel Serres, and Friedrich Kittler. More generally, it offers an alternative to many theories of media and technology that prioritize models of phallocentric hard sciences.