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LIT 400: Reading Cyberliterature Class Schedule |
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Date |
Topic |
Required Texts/ Film/ Game/ Program, Etc. (to be
read, viewed, played or experienced before class) |
Recommended Readings |
Assignment(s) due |
Special Activity (other than discussion) |
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August
30 |
Introduction
to Course (syllabus, NMR and CD, Storyspace, and
some electronic literature) |
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September
13 |
Interactivity
and the “Tradition of Experiment” |
Borges,
“The Garden of Forking Paths” (NMR 29), “Funes His
Memory,” “The Book of Sand” (at BB), and the hypertext
version of the latter story created by Maximus
Clarke, Queneau, “Yours for the Telling” (NMR
147), Interactive Fictions “Adventure” and “Curses” and accompanying
documentation (NMR CD), Douglas, "Abandoning the
Either/Or for the And/And/And: Hypertext and the Art of Argumentative
Writing," (requires Adobe Acrobat reader, a plug-in for web
browsers; to get it free click here.) |
Introductions
by Murray and Manovich (NMR 3-25), Bush, “As We May
Think” (NMR 35, focus on sections 6, 7 and 8), Nelson, from Literary Machines (NMR 441), Bolter,
“Seeing and Writing” (NMR 679), Weinbren, “In
the Ocean of Streams of Story” (NMR CD), Aarseth, “Chapter 1: Ergodic Literature,” from Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature |
Begin
bi-weekly postings to discussion board in second week (to be continued
through week of 11/29) |
Writing
in Storyspace |
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September
20 |
Techno-determinism
and Alternatives |
Moulthrop, |
Moulthrop, “forking paths”
documentation (NMR CD), Enzensberger, ”Constituents
of a Theory of the Media” (NMR 259), Baudrillard,
“Requiem for the Media” (NMR 277) |
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Practice
with writing in Storyspace |
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September
27 |
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VG, Jean Baudrillard,
from
"Simulacra and Simulation" |
Moulthrop, “You Say You Want a
Revolution?” (NMR 691); NY Times article: “Reality TV Goes to War” (at BB);
Wall Street Journal article
on the U.S. Army's use of the Internet ; Website for U. S. Army
recruiting game: "America's
Army"; NPR story on
soldiers’ blogs (with links to the blogs themselves) |
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Presentation
and discussion of first hypertext assignment |
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October
4 |
Cyberpunk |
Gibson,
Burning Chrome (all stories except
“Hinterlands” and “Red Star, Winter Orbit” are required) , Phrack files (NMR CD) |
“Hinterlands”
and “Red Star, Winter Orbit,” Wiener, “Men, Machines, and the World About”
(NMR 67), Licklider, “Man-Computer Symbiosis” (NMR
73), N. Katherine Hayles, "Virtual
Bodies and Flickering Signifiers", |
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Chatroom discussions |
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October
11 |
AI |
Bladerunner: The Director’s Cut, Eliza/Doctor (NMR CD), Weizenbaum, From Computer
Power and Human Reason (NMR 367), |
Turing
“Computing, Machinery, and Intelligence” (NMR 49), Suchman,
“Plans and Situated Actions” (NMR 599) |
Critical
hypertext on VG |
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October
25 |
Technology,
Embodiment, Identity |
Jackson,
Patchwork Girl, Haraway,
“A Cyborg Manifesto” (NMR 515) |
Shelley,
Frankenstein (not ordered for
course), Deleuze and Guattari,
From A Thousand Plateaus (NMR 405), Gosling, “My Not-So-Secret Life as a Cyborg,” Tal, “The
Unbearable Whiteness of Being: African-American Critical Theory and Cyberculture”, Bromley, “Border
Skirmishes: A Meditation on Gender, New Technologies and the Persistence of
Structure” |
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November
1 |
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PG, |
Hershman, Documentation of Lorna and Deep Contact (NMR CD), “Organizing Information” and “Site
Structure” from Chapter on Site Design at Yale Web Style Guide: second edition,
MITH
Tutorial on HTML |
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Coding
in HTML vs. working with WYSIWYG editors |
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November
8 |
Post-Cyberpunk |
Doctorow, Down and Out in the Magic
Kingdom |
Bagdikian, “The Endless Chain” (NMR
471), Stallman, “The GNU Manifesto” (NMR 543), “Who Owns What?” on The Columbia
Journalism Review Website, Umberto Eco, "Travels in Hyperreality"
(1975) (at BB), Essays on Disney at "Transparency
Now", |
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November
15 |
Digital
Poetry |
Queneau, “A Hundred Thousand
Billion Poems” (NMR 147), Kendall, “The Clue” (NMR CD), “3
Proposals for Bottle Imps” by William Poundstone,
and “Firefly”
by Deena Larsen, “The
Dream Life of Letters” by Brian Kim Stefans
(New Media Poetry at Iowa, 2002), “Orient”
by Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries (Iowa Web
Review 2002), “Faith”
by Robert Kendall (Cauldron & Net, 2002) |
Burroughs
, “The Cut-Up Method of Brion Gysin”
(NMR 89), McCloud, “Time Frames” (NMR 711), Loss Pequeño
Glazier, “The
Poetics of Dynamic Texts”, “Jumping
to Occlusions”, Lisa Russ Spaar, “Lines Online:
Poetry Journals on the Web” (The
Chronicle of Higher Education, |
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November
22 |
More
Digital Poetry |
Students’
choices TBA |
Some
resources: Electronic Literature
Organization Directory, The Iowa
Review Web, Literature
Unbound, Deena Larsen's Addicts Attic, Poems that Go, New River; plus, see the
external links and webliography of online sources I
provide at BB. |
Critical
Hypertext (Storyspace or Website) on Cyberpunk/Cyborg/Posthuman Theme |
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November
29 |
Games,
Simulations, Virtual Worlds |
Architecture
Machine Group, Demos of Game,
simulation or virtual world yet to be determined: perhaps Metapet? Banja? Unfiction? Demos
of Myst or Grim Fandango? (or class members’
suggestions) |
Viola,
“Will There Be Condominiums in Dataspace” (NMR
463), Turkle, “Video Games and Computer Holding
Power” (NMR 499),Two Selections by Brenda Laurel (NMR 563), Morningstar and
Farmer, “The Lessons of Lucasfilm’s Habitat” (NMR
663), Ivanhoe
Game |
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December
6 |
Student
Projects |
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Proposal
for final project due |
Workshop
for final projects |
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December
13 |
Student
Projects |
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Draft/version
of final project due |
Workshop
for final projects |
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December
17 |
Final
version of final project due by |
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