English 10LC Syllabus - E. Freudenthal Fall 2005
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Syllabus - E. Freudenthal - Fall 2005
English 10, Introduction to Literary Study:
The Literature and Culture of Information
CONTACT ME: Office hours: Tues./Thurs. 1-2 and by appt. in the Transcriptions Lab, SH 2509 Office: South Hall 1409 (in South Hall’s Graduate Tower) Email: freuden@umail.ucsb.edu (please beware of spelling) Mailbox: South Hall 2630
Wired Onto the Grid This course will propel you onto a matrix of differing but intersecting trajectories: You will learn the basics of literary interpretation to prepare you for the English major or for advanced university-level critical thought. You will study the history and present life of information culture—defined here as digital computing in its technological, social, economic and political ramifications. You will hone your critical eye, examining information culture with practiced analytical finesse. Our readings will be categorized by topical theme: computing as a medium compared to other media, technologically-enabled economic globalization, and information technology’s effects on the human body. Meanwhile, our critical endeavors will be guided by a few overriding questions: Do different media forms affect the content of what they express? How can we reconcile technology’s benefits with the ways technology can harm us? Is computer technology an extension of humanity, completely foreign to us, or some combination of both? Does computer technology enable community and human connection or dismantle it?
Required Texts:
- Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, by Chris Ware,available in the UCSB or IV bookstores.
- Pattern Recognition, by William Gibson,available in the UCSB or IV bookstores.
- A class reader, available at the Associated Students Publications Service, UCen room 1531 next to the MCC. Call 893-4471 with any questions.
- News and views collectively published on the course website
- Various fiction and poetry free and online on the WWW and UCSB’s e-res service.
Your physical presence in class--attendance, tardiness, participation:
- Now and for the rest of college, show up on time having completed the assignment and found something to say about it.
- You are allowed to miss class once, for any reason you want, without telling me (try saving it for illness or emergency.) For every unexcused subsequent absence, your attendance score will go down a grade, and after five absences you will fail the class.
- Every class will begin with a 5-10 minute quickwrite. This will warm you up into the class environment, allow me to grade attendance and participation, allow you to develop critical thoughts and paper topics, and enable all class members to air opinions safely. If quickwrites indicate you haven’t done the assigned reading, you’ll get a tardy for the day.
- Late people will miss crucial information, miss quickwrites, and tick me and their classmates off. After two times, tardiness reduces your attendance grade by 1/2 each time.
- I grade participation based on your active involvement in discussions and assignments both in class and online, effort put into drafts, feedback and revisions, amount of time you visit me in my office, and your willingness to clean my house and maintain my car.
Your virtual presence—Moodling your day away:
- Active participation on the course Web site includes participation in forums and discussion groups. You will be graded on your engagement with your online writing group and the ways that you offer rough draft feedback. You will also be required to submit two terms to the online glossary; you’ll present your terms to the class as well.
Papers, due in my hands, at the beginning of class, on (not after!) their due date, complete assignments will follow in class:
- Essay 1, due Oct 20; a 1000-1300 word close reading (rough draft due Oct 13 online)
- Web Project, due Nov 17; a 1000-1300 word Web site (rough draft due Nov 10 online)
- Final Paper, due Dec 8; a 2000-2500 word revision and expansion of one of the above (rough draft due Nov 29)
- Late papers will receive 1/3 of a grade off for every day they’re late, including weekends.
- If you cannot attend class the day a paper is due, you must email the paper to me before class time and hand in a hard copy as soon as you can. Otherwise the paper will be considered late. Don’t skip class to complete a paper! If it’s not printed out by 10:55am, it’s late already.
Your Final Grade Breakdown:
Essay 1: 20%
Web Project: 20%
Final Paper: 25%
Glossary: 5%
Online Feedback: 10%
Participation: 10%
Attendance: 10%
You must complete and submit all work to pass this class.
Plagiarism policy: The English Department, Summer Sessions, and UCSB at large have no tolerance for plagiarism. If you use the words or ideas of others without proper citation of your source, you may be suspended or expelled from the university. Scientists have proven that plagiarism will turn your brain cells into Styrofoam. Plagiarism is easy to spot and check, so don’t test me.
Writing Help: Please take advantage of the resources available at CLAS, Campus Learning Assistance Services. You get an hour of free writing tutoring every week, by appointment or just dropping in. They also offer language, math, science and other tutoring. Call them for information at 893-3269 or drop in at Building 477.
NOTE: If you are student with a disability and would like to discuss special academic accommodations, please contact me during office hours.
Reading and Assignment Schedule
- Schedule is tentative and subject to change. It omits research and reference reading assignments to be given later in class.
- When poetry is due, please read all poems, choose one or two per poet, and reread them with focus and attention.
- Unless otherwise indicated, poems, short stories and essays are in the reader.
- Please bring all questions about reading and writing assignments to the instructor as soon as possible.
Week 1: Intro to Media Studies
- Sept 27: Ware, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth:Read until the sheriff’s office call, approx. halfway through.
- Sept 29:Ware to the end
Week 2: Media Madness
- Oct 4: Marshall McLuhan, “The Medium is the Message”
- Oct 6: Poems by Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams
Week 3: Digital Media and Poetic Forms
- Oct 11: Mallarmé, “A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance” and dane, “him”
- Oct 13:Guest Lecture by Jeremy Douglass on Interactive Fiction, Sam Barlow, “Aisle”
Essay 1 draft due online
Week 4:
- Oct 18: Adrienne Eisen, “Six Sex Scenes”
*Oct 20: Essay 1 Due
Week 5: The Global Commodity
- Oct 25: William Gibson, Pattern Recognition, 1-127 (Ch 1-13)
- Oct 27: Gibson, 128-244 (Ch 14-28)
Week 6: Info Tech & Global Capitalism
- Nov 1: Gibson to end
- Nov 3: Guest Lecture by Ralph Lowi on Technology and the Music Industry, readings TBA
Week 7: Cyborgs!
- Nov 8:Gerald Vizenor, “Feral Lasers”
- Nov 10:James E Tiptree, Jr., “The Girl Who Was Plugged In,” (e-res)
Web Project Draft Due Online
Week 8: The Body & Information Culture
- Nov 15:Donna Haraway “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century”
- Nov 17: Web Project Due: printouts due in class, project due online.
Screening: eXistenZ
Week 9: Hypertextual Cyborgs
- Nov 22: Victor Vitanza, “Other of the Ear” and Millie Ness, “Biological Time Clock”
- Nov 24: I am thankful for my DSL connection
Week 10: Our Techno-Intellectual Community
- Nov 29: Final Paper Rough Draft Due Online; student presentations of Web projects
- Dec 1: Show and Tell part 2
Finals Week
- Thurs. Dec 8: Final Essay Due
