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Announcement: New undergraduate specialization in the UCSB English
major in "Literature and the Culture of Information." Courses
marked with a 
may be counted toward the specialization. ( More
info on the specialization)
Fall
2000
Alan
Liu
English 236: Hyperliterature
(Graduate)
T 2:00-4:30, South Hall 2635
A course on the emergent genre(s) of hyperliterature that includes
readings in the fiction, multimedia, and theory of hypertext together
with readings in postmodern literary theory. Authors in the hyperliterature
field include Espen Aarseth, Mark Amerika, M.D. Coverley, Shelley Jackson,
Michael Joyce, George Landow, Deena Larsen, Stuart Moulthrop, Rand and
Robyn Miller (creators of Myst and Riven), and others.
Theoretical authors include: Roland Barthes, Gilles Deleuze and Félix
Guattari, Fredric Jameson, Friedrich Kittler. The course will respect
a balance between primary and secondary materials; and will include
a practical assignment that asks students to build a small, but interesting,
hypertext construct.
Winter
2001
Alan Liu
English 25: Literature and the
Culture of Information
(Undergraduate)
Place and Time: MWF 2:00-2:50, Broida 1640
What is the future of culture in a society dominated by information?
What would it mean to create a culture of information that is not just
"cool" but rich, deep, and humane? The purpose of the course is to think
about the place of literature and art in an age when the dominant discourse
is "information" and the dominant socio-economic form is "knowledge
work." Included topics: knowledge work and business, the history and
philosophy of information, the interrelations of orality, literacy,
and hyper-literacy, communication theory, media theory, interface design
(especially the relation between visual and textual information design),
virtual reality and cyberspace, and the role of art in the age of information.
Fulfills Area G; fulfills a writing requirement; can
be used as the one lower-division elective under the 2000-2001 English
major; can be used to fulfill the English minor lower-division class
requirement. Also counts toward the English Department's undergraduate
specialization in Literature
and the Culture of Information.)
Christopher
Newfield
English 197: American Literature
and Business Culture
(Undergraduate)
Time and Place: TR 2:00-3:15, South Hall 2617
The "business of America is business," Calvin Coolidge supposedly
said, but whether he said it or not, the saying reflects the fact that
the United States has one of the most business-oriented cultures in
the world. How has US literary culture responded to this? Does literary
culture have a vision of US life that offers an alternative to business
culture? What can English majors do with their literary and culture
knowledge in the business world? How are new management concepts changing
the American workplace and American society? We'll address the connections
between literature and business through several pairs of concepts: literary
creative and business innovation; cultural diversity and diversity management;
democratic society and corporate economy. Readings include Bronson,'s
The First Twenty Million Are Always the Hardest, Coupland's Shampoo
Planet, Miller's Death of a Salesman, Robinson's Snapshots from Hell,
Morales' The Brick People, Jill Nelson's Volunteer Slavery, films Bladerunner,
Wall Street, and Clearcut. Requirements: Two papers.
William Warner
English 102: English and American Literature from 1650 to 1789: Enlightenment
Communications (Undergraduate)
Time and Place: TR 9:30-10:45, Girvetz 1004
The Enlightenment was a movement in European thought, located in time
between the Renaissance and the Romantic periods, which emphasized the
centrality of skepticism about received ideas, independent critical
thought, and the invention of new systems of knowledge (science, history,
literary criticism). Those participating in this movement committed
themselves to the process of enlightenment: Kant put it this way: "If
it is asked 'Do we now live in an enlightened age?' the answer is 'No,
but we do live in an age of enlightenment'." Those leading the scientific,
economic, and political revolutions of the period ascribed an ethical
value to their turning away from the darkness, superstition, and rusticity
they ascribed to the past and turning toward the truthful light of a
future that promised collective liberation: "Enlightenment is mankind's
exit from its self-incurred immaturity." (Kant, "An Answer to the Question:
What is Enlightenment?") At the center of the enlightenment was a transformation
of communications and information; and these changes enabled the development,
in the period between 1650 and 1789, of many of the institutions we
associate with the modernity: the democratic political systems; global
circuits of trade and communication; and the market in entertainment.
The purpose of this course is to offer a selective overview of this
period around the topic of communication. We shall study the Enlightenment
by focusing upon three related projects of the period: the free circulation
of print as the matrix for public culture; the two-way "correspondence"
between colonial periphery and imperial center, and the production and
consumption of entertainment. Each is a form of enlightenment communication,
and each plays a pivotal role in shaping the literature and culture
of the period. (Counts
toward undergraduate specialization in Literature and the Culture of
Information)
Carol Braun Pasternack
English 205C: Imperial Text (Graduate)
Times: TR 11:00-12:15, South Hall 2716
This course will focus on how control over the technology of textual
production has dovetailed with political hegemonies. In the Anglo-Saxon
period, for example, the production and distribution of law codes, of
chronicles, and of sermons contributed to the domination of "England"
by the kingdom of Wessex and the domination of the West Saxon dialect
over the rest of the language. To cite a later example, the Oxford English
Dictionary not only sanctified a certain linguistic, textual, and literary
history for the English language, but it also was made possible in a
material sense by the British empire as well as the interests in nationalism
in the nineteenth century. The Web, of course, has furthered yet another
textual, political, and economic empire. We will center our readings
and discussion for the first six weeks on three such topics and structure
the remainder of the course around students' specific projects. In addition
to regular class participation, students will submit a proposal for
their projects at the third week, an expanded proposal in the fifth,
conduct a class meeting (or portion of a meeting) related to their projects
during the latter part of the term, and turn in at the end a seminar
paper (though students may negotiate a different final project such
as a web page, an annotated bibliography with commentary, or a dissertation
chapter). Note: Though the course has a medieval course number and will
include the Anglo-Saxon topic mentioned above, in fact the historical
foci of the course will depend on the interests of those who enroll.
Spring
2001
William Warner
English 197, Digitalizing Culture (Undergraduate)
Times: TR 12:00-1:15, South Hall 2635
In the years immediately following World War II, scientific
work in areas like ballistics, encryption, and computing culminated
in the development of the modern computer and new disciplines of knowledge
variously called information studies or cybernetics. At the center
of this work was the use of digital code-sequences of 0's and 1's-to
accomplish tasks of communication and computation at speeds unattainable
by ordinary means. Slowly, these developments in computer science
and information theory have penetrated many regions of social life.
Digitalizing has not just introduced the computer into our everyday
lives or "jacked" us into the Internet. It has also produced new cultural
myths, new technologies of the body, and new forms of entertainment.
This course will try to understand these developments by studying
three kinds of writing in relation to one another.
1) A few (user friendly) classic texts from the early theory of digital
communication, developed around MIT: Shannon/Weaver, Vannevar Bush,
and others. These texts help to ground our understanding of the broad
potential of digitalization.
2) Theories of new digital media: cogent critical analysis of the
most important forms of new digital media: virtual reality, gaming,
and the Internet. What are the underlying forms of digital culture
and their implication for the way we live? For example, the plasticity,
variety, and pervasiveness of the new digital media have intensified
long-standing worries that "media determines culture.
3) Digital narratives: since the earliest days of digitalization,
the work of computer scientists and science fiction writers have been
incited by the idea a computer can be understood as a brain, the brain
as a computer. Is this a failed trope or a fraught rivalry? Does it
herald the end of humanism or a life-enhancing alliance? We will seek
a nuanced and critical understanding of this exchange between brain
and computer in texts and films like 2001/ A Space Odyssey (Clarke/Kubrick);
A Cyborg Manifesto (Haraway), Neuromancer (Gibson), Snow Crash (Stephenson),
and The Matrix. This course is being offered as part of the Transcriptions
Project. As part of their course work, students will offer a short
in-class presentation, work alone or as part of a team on a web-site,
and write a final term paper. There will be plenty of help-in the
form of extra workshops and help in the Transcriptions studio-for
those with little or no experience in Web editing. However, experienced
web-masters are most welcome. (Counts
toward undergraduate specialization in Literature and the Culture
of Information)
This course introduces students
to the new genre of hypertext literature (literature that uses the
"linking," dynamic, and multimedia abilities of digital
media to experiment with narrative form). Readings include works of
hypertext fiction, multimedia, and theory of hypertext (in print,
on the Web, and on CD-ROM) by some of the leading authors in the field.
Hypertext authors or works include Michael Joyce, Shelley Jackson,
M.D. Coverley, Stuart Moulthrop, Ed Falco, the Riven computer game,
and others. Theorists who help place hypertext in its literary context
include: Vannevar Bush, Ted Nelson, Roland Barthes, Fredric Jameson,
George Landow, Espen Aarseth, and Janet H. Murray. The course will
respect a balance between primary and secondary materials; and will
include a practical assignment that asks students to build a small,
but interesting, hypertext construct on the Web. Mainly, the idea
is to have fun exploring and evaluating a new form of literature.
Two papers and a hypertext project. (Note: access to a computer and
the World Wide Web is desirable, though arrangements will be made
to accommodate students without such access. The course requires no
advance knowledge of Web-authoring and will provide workshops for
learning the necessary skills.) (Counts
toward undergraduate specialization in Literature and the Culture
of Information)
William Warner
English 235: Digitalizing Culture (graduate)
Times: T 4-6:30, South Hall 2635
In the years immediately following World War II, scientific work
in areas like ballistics, encryption, and computing culminated in
the development of the modern computer and new disciplines of knowledge
variously called information studies or cybernetics. At the center
of this work was the use of digital code-sequences of 0's and 1's-to
accomplish tasks of communication and computation at speeds unattainable
by ordinary means. Slowly, these developments in computer science
and information theory have penetrated many regions of social life.
Digitalizing has not just introduced the computer into our everyday
lives or "jacked" us into the Internet. It has also produced new
cultural myths, new technologies of the body, and new forms of entertainment.
This course will try to understand these developments by studying
three kinds of writing in relation to one another.
1) A few (user friendly) classic texts from the early theory of
digital communication, developed around MIT: Shannon/Weaver, Norbert
Weiner, Vannevar Bush, and others. These texts help to ground our
understanding of the broad potential of digitalization.
2) Theories of new digital media: cogent critical analysis of the
most important forms of new digital media: virtual reality (Steur),
hypertext (Nelson, Landow), gaming (Aarseth), and the Internet.
What are the underlying forms of digital culture and their implication
for the way we live? For example, the plasticity, variety, and pervasiveness
of the new digital media have intensified long-standing worries
that "media determines culture."
3) Digital narratives: since the earliest days of digitalization,
the work of computer scientists and science fiction writers have
been incited by the idea a computer can be understood as a brain,
the brain as a computer. Is this a failed trope or a fraught rivalry?
Does it herald the end of humanism or a life-enhancing alliance?
We will seek a nuanced and critical understanding of this exchange
between brain and computer in texts and films like 2001/ A Space
Odyssey (Clarke/Kubrick); A Cyborg Manifesto (Haraway), Neuromancer
(Gibson), Snow Crash (Stephenson), and The Matrix. This course is
being offered as part of the Transcriptions Project. As part of
their course work, students will offer a short in-class presentation,
work alone or as part of a team on a web-site, and write a final
term paper. There will be plenty of help-in the form of extra workshops
and help in the Transcriptions studio-for those with little or no
experience in Web editing. However experienced web-masters are most
welcome.
This page created by Robert Adlington for the Transcriptions
Team, 7/24/00 (revised
7/17/02
)
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