Alan Liu, English 165CI: The Culture of Information
(Undergraduate) TR 2:00-3:15, South Hall 2635 (location changed from Girvetz)
The purpose of this course is to think about the nature of knowledge in an age when the dominant discourse is "information" and the dominant mode of work is information-technology-enabled "knowledge work." The course will include print and/or online readings on the following topics: philosophical approaches to information, communication theory, media theory, the relation between visual and textual information design, entertainment and information, knowledge work in corporations, virtual reality. The ultimate goal of the course is to look at information in such a deep way that it will not be surprising that its compelling magic is imaginable in the same frame as literature, and vice versa. There is also a practical goal: to introduce humanities students to skills and technologies that are increasingly necessary in many future careers. Besides traditional individual writing assignments (one short paper, one longer paper), this course will require a team assignment in online discussion, the creation of an online timeline of "the rise of information," and/or research in online resources. (Students need only have an e-mail account; Web access and any other technological tools will be provided by campus resources if students do not have access from their residence). Course Home Page
Winter 2000
Christopher
Schedler, English 134NA: "Weaving
Webs": Native American Literature, Oral Tradition, and Internet
(Undergraduate) MWF 11:00-11:50, Girvetz 1116
In this seminar we will examine the rhetorical and narrative strategies used by Native American writers to challenge and refigure established conventions of writing, representing the past, and depicting the "Indian." Although written forms of literature are not indigenous to Native American cultures, which developed their own oral traditions, for the last 150 years or so Native American artists have written novels, short stories, and poetry that address the political, historical, and cultural experiences of native peoples. Our study will situate these writings in relation to oral traditions, ethnography, Euro-American literary traditions, and the World Wide Web. In this course, which is affiliated with the English Department's Transcriptions project, students will utilize the Web to develop knowledge about Native American history and cultures essential for an understanding of their literatures. In addition, we will examine and test notions of the Internet as a new form of orality and tribalism against Native American understandings of these concepts. The course thus requires a willingness to learn more about and explore the Internet. Course Home Page
Carol
Braun Pasternack, English
165SS: Scroll to Screen
(Undergraduate) MW 5:00-6:15, Bldg 387 #101
This course will explore the differences in telling a tale orally, in writing, in print, and on the computer screen. We will begin with the Bible, with the moment that the Jews made the transition from being a people of a geographical location and oral culture to being a people in exile and a people of the book. We will look both at the special nature of a holy book and the physical aspects and implications of its material shape as scroll. Then we will leap forward to the Bible in print and how that shift in medium put into question its authority, and then on to the holy text on the internet. Next we will zero in on medieval manuscript culture, specifically Christine de Pisan's view of how written texts shaped social interactions and even the self. Her revision of Boccaccio's On Famous Women, the Book of the City of Ladies, will be our main text here, but we will also look at the controversy she incited on the "Question of Women" and her own role in the production of texts, as well as how manuscripts were made and paid for. Then on to the era of print and specifically the more wide-spread circulation of texts in journals. Though this unit will begin in the 18th century, we will focus on The Picture of Dorian Gray as a book that was dramatically revised in its movement from journal publication to book and consider the influence of the reading public and the economics of publication. The class will conclude with interactive fiction on the web, looking at how this medium changes the roles of reader and author as it changes the nature of the text itself, and once again the complex contributions of economics to these changes. The course will include as much contact with the material texts as the teacher can contrive, including field trips. It will also include considerable use of the Web as a topic of analysis, a means of access to manuscripts and early print texts, and as a medium for producing the students' own work. Course Home Page
Alan Liu, English 236: The Culture of Information
(Graduate) TR 2:00-3:15, South Hall 2635
This graduate seminar will think about the nature of knowledge in an age when the dominant discourse is "information" and the dominant mode of work is information-technology-enabled "knowledge work." Included are print and/or online readings on the prehistory, history, and contemporary evolution of information. Included topics: "natural" versus "conventional" and "technological" information, communication theory, media theory, interface design (especially the relation between visual and textual information design), knowledge work in corporations, virtual reality. The ultimate goal of the course is to look at information in such a deep way that it will not be surprising that its compelling magic is imaginable in the same frame as literature, and vice versa. There is also a practical goal: to introduce humanities students to skills and technologies that are increasingly necessary in many future careers. The course requires a brief informal presentation to open a class and a team online project that incorporates an individual critical essay or hypertext essay. Course Home Page
Spring 2000
William Warner, English 122tg: Cyborg Genealogies: The Gothic (Undergraduate)
The Gothic turn:In
the era of the French revolution audiences began to enjoy reading
in order to feel terror. At the center of this development is what
we call the "gothic"—a spectacularly popular form of fiction which
took Protestant readers back into dangerous European cultural spaces
of crypts, bodies, magic and danger. Since the 18th century it has
emerged as one of the most influential forms of modern entertainment.
Of particular interest to us are those gothic monsters that anticipate
the modern cyborg.
The Cyborg turn:
Cyborg is an abbreviation for "cybernetic organism", that
is, a living creature that processes information. The term was first
coined in the 1950s in the wake of the development of cybernetics,
an interdisciplinary approach to the study of information. But it
came into wide use through popular films like Alien, Terminator
and Blade Runner. It became an important coordinate of cultural
theory with the publication of Donna Haraway's "A Cyborg Manifesto."
By splicing together the study of the
modern cyborg with the gothic monster, Cyborg Genealogies: the
Gothic will study a selective group of novels and films and theoretical
texts so as to trace the modern cyborg back to the gothic monster.
This course will will probe the meaning of the intersection between
the gothic genre and the onset of technologies that make the cyborg
thinkable. Course Home Page
This page created by Jennifer Hellwarth for the Transcriptions Team, 2/2/99
(revised 4/4/00)
