Alan Liu, English 25 (Literature & Culture of Information) Schedule

Schedule of Readings
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Lectures: Broida 1640, MWF 2-2:50; Office Hours,SH 2521, Fri. 3-4
Section: Santa Rosa Hall Classroom, W 11-11:50 or Arts Bldg. 1426, W. 12-12:50
(recommended browser) (full version)

= Reader

= Online Only

= Assignment Due

= Supplementary Links

I. Art in the Age of Information

CLASS 1:
Mon.
Jan. 8

Introduction

Introductory lecture

Buy required books at UCSB Bookstore & reader at Alternative Copy Shop.
Purchase Califia (CD-ROM) online or by phone from Eastgate Systems.

CLASS 2:
Wed.
Jan. 10

Arts of Memory

William Wordsworth, "Tintern Abbey" (1798)
William Gibson, Agrippa (A Book of the Dead) (1992)

Peter Schwenger, "Agrippa, or, The Apocalyptic Book" (1994)

CLASS 3:
Fri.
Jan. 12

Postmodern Art

Fredric Jameson, "Postmodernism and Consumer Society" (1983)
Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991), pp. 38-45

[visit by Faculty Liaison person from Instructional Computing]

CLASS 4:
Wed.
Jan. 17

Arts of the Future?

Critical Art Ensemble, "Mythos Information: Welcome to the Wired World The Mythology of Terrorism on the Net" (1995)
Critical Art Ensemble, "Electronic Civil Disobedience" (1995)

Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942), pp. 82-84 (on "creative destruction")

CLASS 5:
Fri.
Jan. 19

(continued)

[Reprise and Discussion]

II. The Age of Knowledge Work

CLASS 6:
Mon.
Jan. 22

Information in the Postindustrial Workplace

Joseph H. Boyett and Henry P. Conn, Workplace 2000 (1992), pp. 1-56, 244-58, 276-83

CLASS 7:
Wed.
Jan. 24

(continued)

Peter F. Drucker, Post-Capitalist Society (1993), pp. 19-47

William H. Davidow and Michael S. Malone, The Virtual Corporation (1992), pp. 1-19, 50-72, 184-205, 214-16

CLASS 8:
Fri.
Jan. 26

The "Spirit of Informationalism"

Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline (1990), pp. 3-16
Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society (1996), pp. 195-200
John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid, The Social Life of Information, pp. 11-35

[Reprise and Discussion]

CLASS 9:
Mon.
Jan. 29

Cyberpunk and the "Dance of Biz"

William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984)

CLASS 10:
Wed.
Jan. 31

(continued)

William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984) [continued]

CLASS 11:
Fri.
Feb. 2

(continued)

[Reprise and Discussion]

4-page essay due

III. The History of Information

CLASS 12:
Mon.
Feb. 5

From Nature to Information

Albert Borgmann, Holding On to Reality: The Nature of Information at the Turn of the Millennium (1999), Introduction & Chaps. 1-4
Andy Goldsworthy's "land art" (photos and selected text) (password needed; restricted to students in this course)

Rand and Robyn Miller, Riven (shown in class)

CLASS 13:
Wed.
Feb. 7

(continued)

Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1936)
Bertram Bruce, "The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction" (2000)

Julian H. Schaff, "Art & Authenticity in the Age of Digital Reproduction"

CLASS 14:
Fri.
Feb. 9

(continued)

[Reprise and Discussion]

CLASS 15:
Mon.
Feb. 12

Orality

Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (1982), pp. 16-27, 31-77

Plato, excerpt from Phaedrus

(use your browser's search function and read from the following sentence to the end: "But there is something yet to be said of propriety and impropriety of writing")

CLASS 16:
Wed.
Feb. 14

Literacy

Albert Borgmann, Holding On to Reality, Chap. 5

Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy, pp. 78-83, 93-103, 115-38

CLASS 17:
Fri.
Feb. 16

(continued)

[Reprise and Discussion]

CLASS 18:
Wed.
Feb. 21

From Literacy to Information Literacy

Claude E. Shannon, "The Mathematical Theory of Communication" (1948), pp. 3-6
John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid, "The Social Life of Documents" (1996) (FirstMonday)
New Criticism:
Archibald MacLeish, "Ars Poetica" (1926)
Cleanth Brooks, "The Heresy of Paraphrase" (1947)

Language Poetry: Charles Bernstein, "You" (1983)

Web-authoring assigment: revised and hypertextual version of your earlier 4-page essay due online (you must learn how to put the essay on the Web in your UWeb space) (help)

CLASS 19:
Fri.
Feb. 23

(continued)

[Reprise and Discussion]

CLASS 20:
Mon.
Feb. 26

Media Literacy

Marshall McLuhan, "The Medium is the Message" (1964)
Johanna Drucker, The Visible Word: Experimental Typography and Modern Art, 1909-1923 (1994), pp. 91-104, 238-47

Jan Tschichold, The New Typography (1928) (sample images and excerpts)

CLASS 21:
Wed.
Feb. 28

(Continued)

David Carson's graphic design work (1990s) (sample images, password required)

Matt Kirschenbaum, "A White Paper on Information" (1998)

CLASS 22:
Fri.
Mar. 2

(continued)

[Reprise and Discussion]

[Quizz on reading materials to date; see online demo for format of quizz]

IV. State of the Art

CLASS 23:
Mon.
Mar. 5

Network and Hypertext

M.D. Coverley (Marjorie C. Luesebrink), Califia (2000) (purchase from Eastgate)

Optional: Marjorie Luesebrink's notes on the Historical Background of Califia (2001)

CLASS 24:
Wed.
Mar. 7

(continued)

M.D. Coverley (Marjorie C. Luesebrink), Califia (2000) (purchase from Eastgate)

Janet H. Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck (1999), pp. 154-82

CLASS 25:
Fri.
Mar. 9

(continued)

[Reprise and Discussion]

CLASS 26:
Mon.
Mar. 12

Virtual Reality

Michael Heim, Virtual Realism (1998), pp. 3-28
Jonathan Steur, "Defining Virtual Reality: Dimensions Determining Telepresence" (1992)

Janet H. Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck, pp. 97-106

CLASS 27:
Wed.
Mar. 14

Machine Literature

Guest Lecturers:
Jeremy Douglass
Elizabeth Freudenthal
Readings:
- François Le Lionnais, "Lipo: First Manifesto" and "Second Manifesto" (handout)
- Italo Calvino, "The Night Driver," "t zero " (handout)
- hAIku! (see also "Random Word Haiku")
Optional:
- CoLIN: Computer Linguistics ImitatioN (Alan J. Brown)
  [explore]
- The Age of Intelligent Machines: "A (Kind of) Turing Test" (Ray Kurzweil)
  [take the test, record your answers; then score and record score]
- Constrained Authorings (Jeremy Douglass and Elizabeth Freudenthal)

CLASS 28:
Fri.
Mar. 16

The Culture of Cool

Dick Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979), pp. 30-45, 52-54

"Gidget Digit" (pseudonym of Stephanie Klein), "Sabotage: The Ultimate Video Game" (from Bad Attitude: The "Processed World" Anthology, 1990, pp. 59-66

8-Page Final Essay due

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