Notes for Class 3: Encountering the Mechanism

This page contains materials intended to facilitate class discussion (excerpts from readings, outlines of issues, links to resources, etc.). The materials are not necessarily the same as the instructor's teaching notes and are not designed to represent a full exposition or argument. This page is subject to revision as the instructor finalizes preparation. (Last revised 10/10/00) (recommended browser)



Some Reference Points for Discussion

* Class Entrance Survey Responses

* George Landow, Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology (1992)

* Carolyn Guertin, Queen Bees and the Hum of the Hive:

  1. "Honeycombings: Undermining from the Fringe"
  2. "Honeycombing: Open Forms in Hypertext and Women's Writing"
  3. "The Hum of the Senses: Speaking Sensation"

* Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (excerpts)

* Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999) (excerpt)

* "Materialities of Communication" / "Schriftlichkeitsgeschichte":

  1. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer, ed., Materialities of Communication, trans. William Whobrey (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1994)
  2. Ivan Illich, In the Vineyard of the Text: A Commentary to Hugh's "Didascalion" (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1993)
  3. Friedrich A. Kittler, Discourse Networks, 1800/1900, trans. Michael Metteer with Chris Cullens (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1990)

* William Gibson, Agrippa (A Book of the Dead)

  1. scene of origin of writing
  2. scene of the continuance of inscription


These class notes are for a course in the Transcriptions Project | Page content by Alan Liu | Last rev 10/10/00