Lit 400: Reading Cyberliterature, from Print to the WWW
Fall 2003
Main 300 and
MWF 10-11
Dr. Robert Fletcher
Main
rfletcher@wcupa.edu
Course Description
This course
will introduce you to the ways in which technoculture
has 1) become the subject of literary representation, and 2) begun to change
"literature" in its very forms. In other words, we'll look at
how computers and network culture are now often both the subjects and media
chosen by imaginative writers. We'll read fiction about cyberspace, view
a film about androids, navigate a multimedia text about
DISCLAIMER: I am
neither a scholar of sci fi
nor a computer geek. Why, you may then ask, am I teaching this
course? Well, I started getting interested in the form of hypertext
(electronically linked text) and how it was affecting reading and writing about
six years ago; people writing about that subject tend also to philosophize and
imagine in broader terms how technology is affecting human (or "posthuman") existence. So this course is modeled
on those by scholars in the field (such as Rita
Raley and Alan
Liu) to reflect in different ways on the implications of living in a wired
world.
Course Goals
- Enhance students’ skills in reading literature and
working with computers;
- Refine students’ writing skills through workshops on
hypertext/hypermedia composition and by facilitating the writing process
through opportunities for feedback and revision;
- Develop students’ critical thinking skills by building on
the theories of reader response covered in LIT 168 and by introducing them
to theories of cybertextuality;
- Introduce students to a significant literary movement of the
last ten years and relate these developments to older traditions of print
culture.
Course Materials
- M. D. Coverley, Califia
(Eastgate Systems, 2000, CD-ROM for Windows)
- Cory Doctorow, Down and Out in the
Magic Kingdom (Tor Books, 2003, discounted
over 6 bucks at amazon.com;
also available free over the web in different formats, including .pdf file for Adobe Acrobat)---Not ordered for the
bookstore!
- William Gibson, Burning Chrome (Ace Books, 1986)
- Shelley Jackson, Patchwork Girl (Eastgate
Systems, 1995, CD for PC or Mac)
- Stuart Moulthrop,
- Plus quite a few other readings either in the form of handouts
or at Blackboard (BB)
- Several floppies or CDs devoted to this class exclusively
(WARNING: Save your work often during the process of creating it and make
multiple copies!)
Course Requirements
- Close and consistent reading of all course materials, as demonstrated
through classroom participation 5%
- Weekly contributions to online collaborative journal
(discussion board) 10%
- Reader-response essay on
- Website on some aspect of the cyberpunk/posthuman
theme (“Patchwork Girl, Burning
Chrome, “Blade Runner,” or Down and Out) 25%
- Oral presentation on a piece of web-based electronic poetry or
fiction 10%
- Final multimedia/hypertext project (creative/critical in
nature, two drafts or versions) 30%
Course Schedule
Part One: Reading Interactive
Texts
(Week 1)
M 8/25:
Introduction. Deena Larsen's flash poem "Intruder"
W 8/27: A Bit of Prehistory
and Propaganda
Vannevar Bush, “As
We May Think” (Atlantic Monthly July 1945) (Focus
on sections 6, 7, and 8; merely skim the rest.)
Robert Coover, “The
End of Books” (from The New York
Times Book Review
Geoffrey Batchen, "Spectres of
Cyberspace," Afterimage 23.3 (1995): 6-7 (BB)
Marie-Laure Ryan, from Introduction to Cyberspace Textuality (
F 8/29: "The Tradition
of Experiment"
Excerpts on
"Interactive Fiction" from Jay David Bolter's Writing Space:
Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print (2nd ed., 2001) (handout
or on reserve)
Jorge Luis Borges,
“The Garden of Forking Paths” (1941), “Funes,
His Memory” (1944), and “The Book of Sand” (1975) (all at
BB), plus the hypertext
version of the last story assembled by Maximus
Clarke
Your first message should
be posted to the electronic discussion board by class time today.
(Weeks 2)
M 9/1: Labor Day.
Begin reading Moulthrop's
W 9/3: Hypertext and
Interactive Reading
Robert Kendall, “Writing for the
New Millenium: The Birth of Electronic
Literature”
J. Yellowlees
Douglas, “What
Hypertexts Can Do That Print Narratives Cannot”
(requires Adobe Acrobat Reader—click here to
get it if you don’t have it.)
F 9/5: Stuart Moulthrop,
(Week 3)
M 9/8: Meet in
W 9/10 and F 9/12:
for
9/10: Jean Baudrillard, from
"Simulacra and Simulation" (1981) and NY Times article: "Reality TV Goes to War"
for
9/12: Wall Street Journal article
on the U.S. Army's use of the Internet and website for U. S. Army
recruiting game: "America's
Army"
(Week 4)
M 9/15: Meet in
W 9/17 and F 9/19:
Shelly Jackson, Patchwork Girl
Part Two: Reading the Posthuman and Writing Hypertext
(Week 5)
M 9/22: Meet in
W 9/24: Patchwork Girl
F 9/26: Patchwork Girl
Donna Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist
Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century”
(Week 6)
M 9/29: Meet in
Response
essay on Victory Garden (written in Storyspace)
due today.
W 10/1: Gibson's Burning
Chrome.
F 10/3: Gibson's Burning
Chrome.
Gareth
Branwyn's "The
Radio Days of Cyberspace."
Beyond Cyberpunk Index
Po-Mo Sci Fi
(Week 7)
M 10/6: Meet in
Lance Olsen,
"Virtual Termites: A Hypotextual Technomutant Explo(it)ration of William Gibson and the Electronic Beyond(s). Style
29.2 (1995): 287. Access by searching phrase
"virtual termites" in EBSCOHost
database.
N. Katherine Hayles, "Virtual
Bodies and Flickering Signifiers"
Sample Bruce
Listen to NPR segment
on information markets; read article on Information Markets by Robin
Hanson.
W 10/8 and F 10/10: Film: Blade
Runner: The Director's Cut
(Week 8)
M 10/13: Fall
Break
W 10/15: Cory Doctorow, Down
and Out in the Magic Kingdom
F 10/17: Doctorow,
Down and Out.
Umberto Eco,
"Travels in Hyperreality" (1975) (BB)
Sample the essays on
Disney at "Transparency
Now"
Doctorow's Blog, boingboing.net
Part Three: The State of
the Arts
(Week 9)
M 10/20: Meet in
Yale Web Style Guide: second edition
A Beginner’s Guide
to HTML (NCSA)
F 10/24: Class canceled for
EAPSU conference. Be reading Califia on
your own.
(Week 10)
M
10/27: Meet in
W 11/5: Discussion of selected
web lit (texts TBA)
F 11/7: Discussion of selected
web lit (texts TBA)
W 11/12 and F 11/14:
Presentations of chosen sites.
(Week 13)
M
11/17: Meet in Anderson 019. Prospectuses for final project due at end
of class.
W 11/19 and F 11/21: No
class. Time to work on final projects.
(Week 14)
M
11/24: Meet in Anderson 019. Work on final projects.