Calendar

Readings are due on the dates indicated. BB indicates a reading can be found on our Blackboard site on the Course Readings page.

Download a PDF of the syllabus here.

Feeling Mediated

Thursday, January 8: NO CLASS – Instructor out of town

• Make sure you read through the email I sent on Jan 4 titled “ENGL 3490: Welcome and Course Information”

Tuesday, January 13

• Please bring laptops to class today.
• On the Media from 11/07/2014, “Midterm Myths, Emotional Algorithms, and More” (listen from 19:32-33:15)
• Jonathan Harris, “We Feel Fine” (Best viewed in Firefox, Safari, or Internet Explorer. Make sure pop-up blockers are turned off. You may be prompted to download a plugin or to confirm that you trust the site. Choose accept.)
  • Read “Mission,” “Movements,” and “Methodology”
• Lisa Nakamura, “Media” from Keywords for American Cultural Studies (2014)
• Ann Cvetkovich, “Affect” from Keywords for American Cultural Studies (2014) (BB)
• Sarah Ahmed, “Introduction” from The Cultural Politics of Emotions (2004), pp. 8-12 (BB)

Print Media

Thursday, January 15

• Mark Z. Danielewski, The Familiar (2015), up to p. 199

Tuesday, January 20

• Mark Z. Danielewski, The Familiar (2015), pp. 200-395
• Matthew Kirschenbaum, “Bookscapes” (2008) (BB)

Thursday, January 22

• Mark Z. Danielewski, The Familiar (2015), pp. 396-608

Tuesday, January 27

• Mark Z. Danielewski, The Familiar (2015), pp. 609-end
• Johanna Drucker, “Experimental Typography as a Modern Art Practice” from The Visible Word (1994), pp. 91-104 (BB)

Digital Media

Thursday, January 29

• Investigation 1 Part One due by class (email me the URLs to your author page and to any posts you’ve made comments on)
• Mark Z. Danielewski, The Familiar (2015), wrap-up
• Tara McPherson, “Digital,” from Keywords for American Cultural Studies (2014)
• N. Katherine Hayles, “Print is Flat, Code Is Deep: The Importance of Media-Specific Analysis,” Poetics Today 25.1 (2004): 67-90 (BB)

Tuesday, February 3

• William Gibson, Dennis Ashbaugh, and Kevin Begos, Jr., Agrippa (A Book of the Dead) (1992)
  • Read about the work: Announcement; James J. Hodge, “Bibliographic Description of Agrippa“ (2. Authorship; 3. Overview; 8. Editions of Agrippa; 9. The Diskette; 10. The Poem)
  • Read the poem
  • Watch the emulation
• Noah Wardrip-Fruin, “5 Elements of Digital Literature” from Reading Moving Letters: Digital Literature in Research and Teaching (2010) (BB)
• Kenneth Goldsmith, “Why I Am Teaching a Course called ‘Wasting Time on the Internet,’” The New Yorker, November 13, 2014

Wednesday, February 4

• Prompt 1 Blog due by 10 pm

Thursday, February 5

• William Gibson,Dennis Ashbaugh, and Kevin Begos, Jr., Agrippa, con’t
• Matthew Kirschenbaum, “Preface” from Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination (2008), pp. ix-xiv (pages 1-4 of pdf, stop at section break) (BB)
• Matthew Kirschenbaum, Ch. 5 “Text Messaging: The Transformissions of ‘Agrippa’” from Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination (2008) (BB)
  • Recommended: Alan Liu, Ch. 11 “Destructive Creativity: The Arts in the Information Age,” from The Laws of Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of Information (2004), pp. 336-348 (BB)
• Read about cracking the Agrippa code; See the Agrippa code in action

Tuesday, February 10

• Investigation 1 Part Two due by class
• Please bring computers to class today. We will be conducting our own experiment in “wasting time on the internet” during class. 
• Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, “Dakota,” “Traveling to Utopia: With a Brief History of the Technology”
• Sianne Ngai, “Stuplimity: Shock and Boredom in Twentieth-Century Aesthetics” Postmodern Culture 10.2 (2000), only read the section titled “From Stupefaction to Stuplime Poetics” (paragraphs 10-24)
  • This is a difficult and dense read. Concern yourself less with the specifics of Ngai’s argument — the evidence she provides from Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans, for example — and more with her conception of “stuplimity.” What does this term describe?
  • [click here to get full article if you’re interested]
• N. Katherine Hayles, Ch. 3 “How We Read: Close, Hyper, Machine” from How We Think: Digital Media and Contemporary Technogenesis, pp. 55-68 (2012) (BB)
• N. Katherine Hayles, “Hyper and Deep Attention: The Generational Divide in Cognitive Modes,” Profession (2007): 187-199 (BB)

Wednesday, February 11

• Prompt 2 Blog due by 10 pm

Feeling Corporate

Thursday, February 12

• Jill Lepore, “The Disruption Machine,” The New Yorker, June 23, 2014
• Evgeny Morozov, Ch. 1 “Solutionism and Its Discontents,” from To__ Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technologial Solutionism (2014), pp. 1-9 (BB)
  • Recommended: Taina Bucher, “Objects of Intense Feeling: The Case of the Twitter API,” Computational Culture (2013)

Case Study: The Corporate University

Tuesday, February 17

• Center for American Progress, “Disrupting College” (2011), pp. 1-24 (BB)
• Todd Hixon, “Higher Education is Now Ground Zero for Disruption,” Forbes, January 6, 2014
• R.A., “Online education: The disruption to come,” The Economist, February 11, 2014
• Rebecca Koenig, “A Look at Ed Tech’s Biggest Money Magnets,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 12, 2014 (BB)
  • Recommended: Jenterey Sayers, “Technology,” from Keywords for American Cultural Studies (2014)

Wednesday, February 18

• Prompt 3 Blog due by 10 pm**

Thursday, February 19

• Christopher Newfield, “Introduction,” from Unmaking the Public University: The Forty-Year Assault on the Middle Class (2008), pp. 1-11, 13-15 (BB)
• Christopher Newfield, Ch. 11 “The Problem with Privatization,” from Unmaking the Public University: The Forty-Year Assault on the Middle Class (2008) (BB), only read pp. 183-194
• “Tuition and fees, 1998-99 Through 2014-15,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 13, 2014

Tuesday, February 24

• Marc Bosquet, Ch. 2 “The Informal Economy of the ‘Information University,’” from How the University Works: Higher Education and the Low-Wage Nation (2008) (BB), focus on pages 55-64
  • Recommended: Dan Berrett, “The Day the Purpose of College Changed,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 26, 2015
  • Recommended: Christopher Newfield, Ch. 13 “Hiding Culture’s Contribution,” from Unmaking the Public University: The Forty-Year Assault on the Middle Class (2008) (BB)
• TodaysMeet chatroom for classroom backchannel: must sign up for an account using your Clemson address
• Further Resources:
  • Chris Newfield’s blog on the privatization of higher education and its effects: http://utotherescue.blogspot.com/. See especially this recent post on what’s happening to the University of Wisconsin system under Governor Scott Walker: http://utotherescue.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-high-price-of-public-authority-in.html
  • Tressie McMillan Cottom’s work on for-profit universities, inequality, and instructional technology. Much of this is posted on her blog. To get started, see these posts: http://tressiemc.com/2014/11/10/ask-not-what-your-country-can-do-for-you-but-what-coursera-can-do-for-your-country-part-1/; http://tressiemc.com/2014/09/09/debbie-downerism-john-oliver-and-for-profit-colleges/; http://tressiemc.com/2014/10/21/top-100-race-gender-credentialism/
  • Lee Skallerup’s blog College Ready Writing, which tackles issues in higher education, among other topics. To get started, see these posts: https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/college-ready-writing/national-adjunct-walkout-day; https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/college-ready-writing/contingency-vocation-and-loyalty

Wednesday, February 25

• Prompt 4 Blog due by 10 pm**

Cultural Innovation

Thursday, February 26

• William Gibson, Pattern Recognition (2003), Ch. 1 – 9
• TodaysMeet chatroom for classroom backchannel: must sign up for an account using your Clemson address

Tuesday, March 3

• William Gibson, Pattern Recognition (2003), Ch. 10 – 19
  • Recommended: Alan Liu, Ch. 7 “The Feeling of Information,” from The Laws of Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of Information (2004) (BB)
• TodaysMeet chatroom for classroom backchannel: must sign up for an account using your Clemson address

Wednesday, March 4

• Prompt 5 Blog due by 10 pm**

Thursday, March 5

• Mark Z. Danielewski Talk: Class will meet today in the Class of 1941 Studio for Student Communication conference room (First floor, Daniel Hall, space H on this map)

Tuesday, March 10

• William Gibson, Pattern Recognition (2003), Ch. 20 – 32
• N. Katherine Hayles, “Traumas of Code,” Critical Inquiry 33.1 (Autumn 2006): 136-157; read pp. 136-147, 155-157 (BB)

Wednesday, March 11

• Prompt 6 Blog due by 10 pm**

Thursday, March 12

• William Gibson, Pattern Recognition (2003), Ch. 33 – 43

Because of the Danielewski talk last week, I cut some reading. Only the chapters from Pattern Recognition _are assigned for today. But here is what was _originally assigned for today (in case you want to further your education on your own):

• Jennifer Egan, “Great Rock and Roll Pauses,” from A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010)
• Anne Balsamo, “Introduction: Taking Culture Seriously in the Age of Innovation,” from Designing Culture: The Technological Imagination at Work (2012), pp. 1-16, 25 (BB)

Friday, March 13

• Investigation 2 due by 10:00 pm

Tuesday, March 17 – NO CLASS: Spring break

Thursday, March 19 – NO CLASS: Spring break

Feeling Big and Bad

Malware

Tuesday, March 24

• Ellen Ullman, The Bug (2003), Part One
• Nathan Ensmenger, “Making Programming Masculine” from Gender Codes (2010) (BB)

Wednesday, March 25

• Prompt 7 Blog due by 10 pm

Thursday, March 26 – NO CLASS: Instructor out of town

Tuesday, March 31

• Ellen Ullman, The Bug (2003), Parts Two and Three

Wednesday, April 1

• Prompt 8 Blog due by 10 pm**

Thursday, April 2

• Ellen Ullman, The Bug (2003), Part Four
• Tara McPherson, “US Operating Systems at Mid-Century: The Intertwining of Race and UNIX” from Race After the Internet (2012) (BB)
  • Recommended: Lisa Nakamura, “Glitch Racism: Networks As Actors Within Vernacular Internet Theory,” Culture Digitally: Examining Contemporary Cultural Production, December 10, 2013

Big Data

Tuesday, April 7

• “NSA Files Decoded: What the Revelations Mean for You,” The Guardian (2013)
• Alice Marwick, “How Your Data Are Being Deeply Mined,” The New York Review of Books (2014) (BB)
• John Foreman, “Data Privacy, Machine Learning, and the Destruction of Mysterious Humanity” (2014)
• Acxiom Personicx Clusters

Wednesday, April 8

• Prompt 9 Blog due by 10 pm**

Thursday, April 9

• Steven Salzberg, “Why Google Flu is a Failure: The Hubris of Big Data” (2014)
• Rita Raley, “Dataveillance and Countervailance” from “Raw Data” Is an Oxymoron (2013) (BB)

Tuesday, April 14

• Ted Chiang, “Understand” (2002) (BB)
• Stephen Wolfram, “The Personal Analytics of My Life” (2012)

Wednesday, April 15

• Prompt 10 Blog due by 10 pm (Everyone must respond to this prompt)

Thursday, April 16

• Adrian Chen, “The Laborers Who Keep Dic Pics and Beheadings Off Your Facebook Feed,” Wired, October 23, 2014
• Kenneth Goldsmith, “The Artful Accidents of Google Books,” The New Yorker, December 4, 2013
• Andrew Wilson, “Workers Leaving the Googleplex”

Tuesday, April 21

• Final Projects workshop

Thursday, April 23

• Final Projects workshop

Finals Week

Friday, May 1

• Final Project due by 2:00 pm