Highways of the Mind

Highways of the Mind explores the history of the interstate highway system and its transformative impact on the physical and cultural landscapes of America. Beginning with the 1939 New York World’s Fair and tracing the development of America’s automotive culture, Highways of the Mind combines interactive multimedia features with original scholarly content to provide new insight into the figure of the superhighway as a metaphor for social progress through technology. We show that the superhighway is a compelling 20th-century metaphor that reveals the complex nature of humankind's fascination with technologies of transportation, from our fantasies of techno-utopianism to our anxieties about the disappearance of nature and the dehumanizing impact of modern technology.

A scholarly multimedia work exploring the rhetorics and cultural impact of the American superhighway system in urban planning, urban/environmental criticism, ecological studies, infrastructural studies and science fiction.