The information age and the intermediary: John Brockman, new media and science writing since the 1960s

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Historians are increasingly investigating the mechanisms by which scientists have been elevated to celebrity but haveseldom considered the role of the agent. Behind, between, and beyond celebrity scientists are intellectual, social, andfinancial mediators like John Brockman, whose literary agency represents some of the most prominent authors in thefield of science and technology today. The oft-repeated story of Brockman's metamorphosis from art impresario tocyberculture maven is important as a set of primary sources - his practice as agent exploited the myth-making potentialof the press - but is severely lacking as analysis. Brockman's first career as a media theorist and promoter ofexperimental art must be fully explored in order to understand his iconoclastic practice as an agent. So too thedevelopment of his non-profit research network, through which Brockman cultivated important relationships between BigTech philanthropists and prominent scientists. At the same time, his and his clients' reputations were buttressed bymobilising countercultural and cybercultural narratives surrounding intellectual vanguards. Through an exploration andcontextualisation of this most influential of intermediaries in all his contradictions, I will show how Brockman shapedscience, scientists, and science writers as we know them today.