2/4/00 Student topic sites are now listed (with live links) on the "Student Materials" page of the course site. I have put online on the class notes page for Class 9 a "digest" of Plato's Phaedrus (excerpts from the whole dialogue that I have chosen and given titles).

1/13/00 In the reading from Manuel Castells for Class 3 next time, I forgot to mention that you will want to consult at least three of the statistical tables that accompany the discussion of occupational trends from 1920-1990. So the full assignment in the Schedule (which I have just updated) is as follows: "Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society (1996), pp. 151-72, 195-216 (with accompanying tables on 282-83, 296, 304), 240-51, 264-72."

1/12/00 The class reader has mysteriously sold out at the copy shop. They promise to have 10 extra copies ready by early a.m on Thursday, 1/13.

1/10/00 Please read for Class 1 in advance of our first meeting. The readings consist of William Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey" and the text portion of William Gibson's Agrippa (A Book of the Dead).

1/9/00 The course Web site is now in final form (except for "notes to facilitate class discussion"; see previous bulletin on the latter). I have added a substantial set of "prospectuses" for each class on the schedule. Though not binding (because of inevitable changes during class preparation), these prospectuses provide a sense of the overall narrative of the course, a rationale for each assemblage of readings, and an initial orientation (to be extended, probed, or diverged from) for students preparing presentations.

1/5/00 News in Advance of the Beginning of the Course: The reader for the course will be available at the Alternative Copy Shop in Isla Vista by Tuesday, Jan. 11th. Required books are available at the UCSB bookstore. The course schedule and other Web pages are undergoing revision in the period before the beginning of Winter quarter, though they are now nearing completion. On the schedule page, the links to "notes to facilitate class discussion" associated with each class now point to obsolete materials prepared for the undergraduate course I taught in fall. Since that course has been much redesigned for the purpose of a graduate seminar, the notes will be revised as I prepare for each individual class.