ENGLISH 207A
Introduction to Cultural Studies:
Cyberculture
Winter 2004, T & Th, 11:30-1:20pm
271 Mary Gates Hall
Steven Shaviro (shaviro@shaviro.com)
Office: A303 Padleford, T & Th 2:00pm-3:00pm
As recently as fifteen years ago, computer-mediated communication (CMC) was in its infancy. The Internet as we know it today scarcely existed. Email accounts were few and far between, 300-baud modems were the rule, and the World Wide Web had not yet been invented. In an astonishingly short time, everything has changed. Today we take the Net so much for granted, that it's hard to gauge the distance we have gone, or the difference it has made. This course will consider the many ways that contemporary culture has been reshaped--and is still in process of being reshaped--as a result of the growth of the Internet, and associated electronic technologies. We will look into the new electronic forms of culture, and try to decode the new messages that are being conveyed by the new digital media: personal computers and world-wide information networks, above all, but also video, multimedia, interactive games, online communities, and virtual reality technologies. We will look at a wide range of material: from theoretical writings about the nature of virtualization to policy debates about issues such as copyright and encryption, and from speculative science fiction to experiments in interface design to "net art" projects.
January 6: INTRODUCTION TO CYBERCULTURE
January 8: BLOGS AND BLOGGING
January 13: MARSHALL MCLUHAN AND MEDIA THEORY
January 15: APPROACHING CYBERSPACE
January 20: THE NETWORK SOCIETY
January 22: VIRTUAL IDENTITIES
January 27: COMMUNITIES, VIRTUAL AND "REAL"
- Howard Rheingold, from The Virtual Community: Introduction
- Mark Poster, "Cyberdemocracy"
- Michele Willson, "Community in the Abstract" (BK42)
- Michael Ostwald, "Virtual Urban Futures" (BK43)
- Susan Zickmund, "Approaching the Radical Other" (BK15)
January 29: LIVING IN CYBERSPACE
February 3: VIRTUAL BODIES
- Allucquere Rosanne Stone, "Will the Real Body Please Stand Up?" (BK32, or here)
- Diane Gromala, "Pain and Subjectivity in Virtual Reality" (BK38)
- Anne Balsamo, "The Virtual Body in Cyberspace" (BK31)
- Jennifer Gonzalez, "Envisioning Cyborg Bodies" (BK34)
February 5: POSTHUMAN DREAMS
First Short Paper Due
February 10: PRIVACY, OWNERSHIP, HACKING, AND SURVEILLANCE
February 12: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND COPYRIGHT
- John Perry Barlow, "The Economy of Ideas"
- Gary Shapiro, "The New Copyspeak"
- Jessica Litman, "The Art of Making Copyright Laws"
- Richard Stallman, "The Right To Read"
- Congressman Rick Boucher, "Time to Rewrite the DMCA"
- Declan McCullagh, The New Jailbird Jingle
- The Atlantic, Roundtable on Copyright
- From John Alderman, Sonic Boom: Introduction and Chapter 1
- Jaron Lanier, A Love Song for Napster
- Annalee Newitz, "Yaaar! The music pirates' manifesto"
- Charlie Stross, "The Panopticon Singularity"
February 17: HYPERTEXT AND DIGITAL AESTHETICS
February 19: DIGITAL ART
February 24: COMPUTER GAMES
- Henry Jenkins, "Art Form for the Digital Age"
- McKenzie Wark, "The Video Game as Emergent Media Form"
- Talmadge Wright, Eric Boria and Paul Breidenbach, "Creative Player Actions in FPS Online Video Games"
- Sue Morris, "Online Gaming Culture"
- Ted Friedman, "Civilization and Its Discontents: Simulation, Subjectivity, and Space"
- Ted Friedman, "Making Sense of Software: Computer Games and Interactive Textuality"
- Shawn Miklaucic, "Virtual Real(i)ty: SimCity and the Production of Urban Cyberspace"
- Celia Pearce, "Sims, BattleBots, Cellular Automata God and Go: A Conversation with Will Wright"
- Daniel Sieberg, "The World According to Will"
- Nicholas Yee, "The Norrathian Scrolls: A Study of Everquest"
- Anne-Marie Schleiner, "Parasitic Interventions: Game Patches and Hacker Art"
- Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka and CT's Stalker, "How To Survive in Any RPG"
- Amy Harmon, "A real-life debate on free speech in a cyberspace city"
February 26: "SMART MOBS" AND MOBILE COMPUTING
March 2: STUDENT PRESENTATIONS
March 4: STUDENT PRESENTATIONS
March 9: STUDENT PRESENTATIONS
March 11: STUDENT PRESENTATIONS
Second Short Paper Due
Class requirements
- Serve as co-facilitator for two classes: this means, as part of a group, helping to lead class discussion, and providing me with a copy of your preparatory notes for the class session (15% of grade each, for a total of 30%).
- Create and maintain your own weblog, on which you write regularly (20% of grade).
- Write two short (4-page) papers, due on Feb 5 and on March 4 (15% of grade each, for a total of 30%).
- Create a website and give an accompanying in-class presentation at the end of the quarter (groups encouraged). You can find suggestions for topics, and examples of projects from past classes, here, and project pages for our class here. (20% of grade).
Required Texts
- David Bell and Barbara M. Kennedy, eds., The Cybercultures Reader (BK)
- Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore, The Medium is the Massage
- Various online readings
SOME CYBERCULTURE RESOURCES
BLOGGING SOFTWARE
OTHER BLOGGING RESOURCES
MAKING A WEBSITE: RESOURCES