Theory and Cyberspace: Culture, Technology, Media

Humanities 301, Summer 2005 (July 5 - Aug. 4), Tues. - Thurs. 9:00-12:45, A303 Old Mill Annex

Thomas Streeter: 656-2167; thomas.streeter@uvm.edu, 31 So. Prospect (Benedict House)

This course will explore intersections between, on the one hand, theories of culture, technology, and society and, on the other, that set of cultural and sociological phenomena associated with computer communications colloquially known as "cyberspace." Scholarly work that discusses the relations between media, spatial relations, social and legal regulation, technology, bodies, and society will be explored alongside examples of "cyberspace" culture.

Assignments

The principle assignment (roughly 50% of your grade) will be a research paper (perhaps 20-25 pages).  

Course Outline

[Add Borges library; Ulmer; my piece for Institute; Computer Power and Human Reason excerpt, other humanist critiques; bodies earlier]Readings and films: most of the readings will be on electronic reserve; there will be links from the online version of this syllabus at: http://www.uvm.edu/~tstreete/Courses/cyberspace_syl.htm. Most of the online readings will require you to provide your UVM "net id," (i.e., you zoo username and password).  I strongly recommend you print out online readings, which makes them much easier to read and allows you to bring them to class. 

William Gibson's Neuromancer [originally 1984] is available at local bookstores or online. 

During the semester we'll also look at the following films, which will be on reserve in the media library: Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1926); Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982), and Mark Neale's 1999 documentary "William Gibson - No Maps for These Territories." We'll work out a schedule for viewings on the first day of class. (All this is subject to changes and additions during the semester.) 

Please read and/or view the materials listed below before the class on the date listed.

July 5: Introduction -- Modernization and Communication

• Streeter, "The Puzzle of Modernization," http://www.uvm.edu/~tstreete/Courses/Soc43/pages/lecture_modernization.html
• Manuel Castells, "Prologue: the Net and the Self," from The Rise of Network Society, 2nd edition (Vol 1 of The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture) Blackwell, 2003, pp. 1- 27. 
• William Gibson, Neuromancer

July 7: Life in the Matrix of Modernity

• Raymond Williams, "The Social History of the Uses of Television Technology," from Television: Technology and Cultural Form, pp. 19-31.
• Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," from Illuminations, NY: Schocken, 1969, pp. 217-251. http://library.uvm.edu/e-res/bailey/soc/wbents295.pdf.
• Manuel Castells, "The Culture of Real Virtuality: the Integration of Electronic Communication, the End of the Mass Audience, and the Rise of Interactive Networks," pp. 355- 406.
• View: Mark Neale's 1999 documentary "William Gibson - No Maps for These Territories."

July 12: The Original Information Technologies: Orality, Writing, Books, Printing

• Walter J. Ong, "Orality, literacy and modern media" (excerpts from Orality and literacy : the technologizing of the word, Methuen, 1982) chapter 9 from Communication in history: technology, culture, society, Boston, MA Allyn & Bacon 2003 http://www.uvm.edu/bhreserves/humn/wongts301.pdf. 
• Elizabeth Eisenstein, excerpts from The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and cultural transformations in early-modern Europe, London: Cambridge University Press, 1979, pp. 43-47, 66-91, 113-125, 129-136; http://www.uvm.edu/bhreserves/soc/eisensteints295.pdf.
• Robert Darnton, "Readers Respond to Rousseau: The Fabrication of Romantic Sensitivity," from his The Great Cat Massacre(New York: Basic Books, 1984) pp. 215-56.
• Jay David Bolter, "The Idea of the Book," from Cyberreader, http://www.uvm.edu/~tstreete/readings/elecbookt100.pdf

July 14:  The Problem of Determination

• Streeter, "The Politics of Technological Development: Comparing the History of the Radio to the History of the Internet," http://www.uvm.edu/~tstreete/Courses/Soc43/pages/lecture_radio.html.
• Langdon Winner, "Do Artifacts Have Politics?" http://www.uvm.edu/bhreserves/soc/winnts295.pdf 
• Daniel Chandler, "Technological Determinism" http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/tecdet/tecdet.html.
• Raymond Williams, "The technology and the society," from Television: Technology and Cultural Form, Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press ; Hanover, NH : University Press of New England, [1992] (Originally published: [London] : Fontana, [1974].) pp. 9-19; http://library.uvm.edu/e-res/bailey/soc/raywilts295.pdf
• View: Fritz Lang, Metropolis (1926)

July 19: Beyond the Book?

• Douglas C. Engelbart, "Augmenting the Human Intellect," 1969; http://www.stanford.edu/class/history34q/readings/Engelbart/Engelbart_AugmentIntellect.html.
• Theodor Holm Nelson, excerpts from Literary Machines, 1982 http://library.uvm.edu/e-res/bailey/soc/litmachts295.pdf
• Apple "Knowledge Navigator" Vision Video ca1988
• Paul Duguid "Material Matters: Aspects of the past and futurology of the book," http://www2.parc.com/ops/members/brown/papers/mm.html.
• Thomas Streeter, "Reflections on Textual Authority beyond the Printed Page." M/C Reviews 15 Sept. 1999, http://reviews.media-culture.org.au/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=70. 

• Roland Barthes, "From Work to Text," and "Change the Object itself," from Image, Music, Text, New York, Hill and Wang, 1997, pp. 155-169; http://www.uvm.edu/bhreserves/soc/barthests295.pdf.
• Michel Foucault, "What is an Author?" Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews, Donald F. Bouchard Ed., Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977, p. 138.

July 21:  The Postmodern Condition

• James W. Carey, "The Mythos of the Electronic Revolution," and "The History of the Future," in Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society, Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989, pp. 113-141 and pp. 173-200.
• Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, Manchester University Press, 1984, pp. 3-17; http://www.uvm.edu/bhreserves/soc/lyotardts295.pdf.
• Mark Dery, "The Cult of the Mind," New York Times Magazine, Sept. 28, 1997, pp. 94-96; http://www.uvm.edu/bhreserves/soc/deryts295.pdf.
• Baudrillard, "The Ecstasy of Communication," from Hal Foster (ed.) The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, Port Townsend, WA: Bay Press, 1983, pp. 126-134; http://www.uvm.edu/bhreserves/soc/baudrillardts295.pdf.
• Manuel Castells,  "Conclusion: social change in the network society," from Power of identity, Blackwell 2003, pp. 418-428, http://www.uvm.edu/bhreserves/humn/sochangets301.pdf
• Friedrich Kittler, Introduction to Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, Translated by Geoff Winthrop-Young and Michael Wutz (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), Preface, Introduction, and Chapter 1: Gramophone. 
• Slavoj Zizek, "Welcome to the Desert of the Real," published on Sept. 17, 2001 [note the date!] http://web.mit.edu/cms/reconstructions/interpretations/desertreal.html. 

July 26: Space, Time, Society

• E. P. Thompson, "Time, Work-discipline, and Industrial Capitalism," Past and Present, No. 38, 1967, pp. 56-97.
• Michel Foucault, Excerpts from Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison, New York Vintage Books 1979
• James W. Carey, "Technology and Ideology: The Case of the Telegraph," from Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society, Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989, pp. 201-230. http://library.uvm.edu/e-res/bailey/soc/techidts295.pdf
• Arjun Appadurai, "Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy," Theory, Culture & Society, Vol. 7, 1990, pp. 295-310.
• Jody Berland, "Angels Dancing: Cultural Technologies and the Production of Space," in Grossberg et al. (eds.), Cultural Studies, New York: Routledge, 1992. http://www.uvm.edu/bhreserves/soc/berlandts295.pdf.
• Mike Davis, "Fortress LA," from City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles, http://www.uvm.edu/bhreserves/soc/davists295.pdf.

July 28: Selves, Bodies, and Virtuality

• Julian Dibbell, "A Rape in Cyberspace," Village Voice, Dec. 21, 1993, pp. 36-42; http://www.uvm.edu/bhreserves/soc/dibbellts295.pdf.
• Joseph Weizenbaum,  "Science and the compulsive programmer," Chapter 4 of Computer power and human reason,  San Francisco WH Freeman and Co. 1976;  http://www.uvm.edu/bhreserves/humn/weizenbaumts301.pdf. 
• Allucquere Rosanne Stone, "Will the Real Body Please Stand Up? Boundary Stories about Virtual Cultures" in Michael Benedikt (ed.) Cyberspace: First Steps, pp. 81-118.
• Sherry Turkle, "Constructions and reconstructions of the self in virtual reality," Mind, culture, and activity, Summer 1994, pp. 1-15; http://library.uvm.edu/e-res/bailey/soc/sturkts295.pdf.
• Ellen Ullman, "Come In, CQ: The Body on the Wire," in Cherny and Weise (eds.),Wired Women: Gender and New Realities in Cyberspace, pp. 3-23

• Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, New York: Routledge, pp. 149-181: http://www.uvm.edu/bhreserves/humn/cymants301.pdf. 
• Slavoj Zizek, "Cyberspace, or, the unbearable closure of being," Pretexts: Studies in Writing and Culture, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1997, pp. 53-79; http://www.uvm.edu/bhreserves/soc/zizekts295.pdf.
• View: Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)

Aug 2: Gender and Technology

• Paulina Borsook, "The Diaper Fallacy Strikes Again," ReWired, December 3rd, 1997, http://www.rewired.com/97/1203.html
• Jennifer Light, "When Computers were Women," Technology and Culture - Volume 40, Number 3, July 1999, pp. 455-483, http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/technology_and_culture/v040/40.3light.html. (Access from the campus network only.) 
• William Boddy: "Archaeologies of Electronic Vision and the Gendered Spectator," Screen 35:2 Summer 1994, http://www.uvm.edu/~tstreete/readings/boddyts295.pdf

• Helen W. Kennedy "Lara Croft: Feminist Icon or Cyberbimbo? On the Limits of Textual Analysis," http://www.gamestudies.org/0202/kennedy/
• Wendy Wahl essay: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/postmodern_culture/v003/3.2wahl.html
• Cheris Kramerae: http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/djglp/articles/gen4p149.htm
  
• Women and Technology, Beyond the Binary: A Roundtable Discussion with N. Katherine Hayles, Marjorie Perloff, Diane Greco, Linda Carroli and Shelley Jackson, hosted by Jennifer Ley http://www.heelstone.com/meridian/rtable3.html
• Streeter, "The Romantic Self and the Politics of Internet Commercialization," Cultural Studies 17 (5) 2003, http://www.uvm.edu/~tstreete/readings/Streeter_Romantic_Self.pdf
• Heim, "The Erotic Ontology of Cyberspace," http://www.uvm.edu/~tstreete/readings/heimts295.pdf

Aug 4: Presentations

James Carey, "Culture, Technology and Communications: Bibliography and Suggestions for Reading and Writing," 1980 (a course syllabus that's also an exceptional literature review); http://www.uvm.edu/bhreserves/soc/careyts295.pdf.

James Boyle's excellent page of copyright links: http://www.law.duke.edu/boylesite/copyright.htm.  

Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace
by Lawrence Lessig
Shamans, Software, and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the Information Society
by James Boyle
The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change
by David Harvey
How We Became Posthuman : Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics
by N. Katherine Hayles
Sherry Turkle, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995.
The Language of New Media (Leonardo Books)
by Lev Manovich