digital literacy honors course proposal (katherine d. harris)
TRANSCRIPT
-
8/9/2019 Digital Literacy Honors Course Proposal (Katherine D. Harris)
1/6
ProposedHonorsCourse(Fall2010)DigitalLiteracy:FromPrintCulturetoSocialNetworkingKatherineD.HarrisNoteontheClassroom&MeetingTimeThis course would be best taught as a 3hour, once per week meeting. The Incubator Classroom is
an optimal teaching space where students will each have a PC or Mac laptop during class time,unfettered wireless Internet and SJSU server access as well as video conferencing and recording
capabilities. (The IC is available for the Fall if this course is approved.)
CourseDescriptionWith the evolution of print technology in the early nineteenth century, authors, reviewers and
publishers began descrying the ease with which someone could call himself or herself an author.
However, the evolution of language, the dissemination of print materials, the creation of a larger
community has always been part of the human condition. Now, we call it social networking, an
atmosphere in which readers become users as well as authors and a time when we can respond to
each other virtually but in real time. So, what does this mean for Literature and the literary? In this
course, we will explore the impact of Web 2.0 on our literary culture by tapping into our existing
digital literacy and digital literature. We will explore, intellectualize and critically examine the
content creation in these social spaces even the creation of fiction and poetry as digitally
enhanced, multiple authored texts, some of them adaptations of 19th Century texts. After all, didnt
Dickens do this when he altered the conclusion ofGreatExpectations three times to suit his fans?
ReadingMaterialsAll readings (even the Readers) are available online thanks to the generosity of the authors and
publishers.
Required
Email Account & Unfailing Access to the Internet
Twitter, Facebook, Flickr & YouTube Accounts
GuestLecturers*Prof. Carolyn Guertin, Director eCreate Lab, University of Texas, Arlington
Prof. Matthew Jockers, Humanities Computing & Irish Studies, Stanford University
Prof. David Silver, Media Studies, University of San Francisco & Director, Resource Center for
Cyberculture Studies
Prof. Laura Mandell, Miami University, Ohio & Assoc. Director, NINES (NineteenthCentury Studies
Online)
Prof. Matt K. Gold, English, New York City College of Technology & Graduate Center, CUNY
Prof. Jamie Skye Bianco, English, University of Pittsburgh
*Note: All guest lecturers have already confirmed willingness to appear either by videoconferencing or in person.
-
8/9/2019 Digital Literacy Honors Course Proposal (Katherine D. Harris)
2/6
Harris: Digital Literacy Proposal 2
PotentialAssignments: Weekly Reading Responses (Blog): For each days readings post a response to your blog. I
will read these postings and post my own reactions or questions when appropriate. In
addition, inclass blog entries will be assigned when an interesting subject arises out of our
discussions. (By midsemester, we may move this to Tweets or microblogging to
experiment with the efficacy of Twitter and the brevity of language.)
Exploring Current Scholarship: With the advent of YouTube and mp3 files, we can nowlisten to scholars and experts from far and wide. For this assignment, choose one of the
podcasts or videos from the selection (Digital Campus at George Mason U, HASTAC at UCLA
or MITH at U of Maryland). Watch it; report back to the entire class about the ideas
represented.
Assessment of MicroBlogging: Many of the Digital Humanities scholars are following eachother on Twitter, a microblogging platform that allows users to type only 140 characters to
convey an idea. Many of the Digerati blast the community with ideas and receive realtime
responses (as opposed to email, blogging, wikis or print scholarly apparatus). Sign up for
Twitter and follow some of the Digerati in my Twitter list (already established). You mightfind that youd like to expand your followings or that youll acquire some Digerati followers.
Think about some of these questions as you follow along: Is Twitter a valid scholarly
apparatus? Does it extend the conversations beyond the university walls? Is it
professional? Is it literary? Can Whitmans SongofMyselfor Shakespeares Sonnets be
tweeted in 140 characters? Keep track of the daily conversations and report back to us on
the due date. Submit a 1200word evaluation of the Tweets.
Adapting Literature to RolePlaying (Video) Games: The visual and the literary have alreadybeen linked with the creation of 15thCentury emblems (e.g. EmblematumLiber). In the 20th
Century, graphic novels (e.g., Maus) have furthered this relationship between images and
text in postmodernstyle fractured plots (e.g., anything Neil Gaiman!). With this assignment,
we will wed the literary to the visual with one further step creating and assessing theusercreated narrative of roleplaying (video) games. You have all read an inordinate
amount of literary texts, both canonical and noncanonical. This is your moment to work
with your favorite text and turn it into a roleplaying game. You must be able to articulate
your texts genre rules and adapt it to the visual world of video games. This means that you
need to intricately understand your texts internal rules. You may have to unearth the
cultural resonance of that text as well be prepared for some literary sleuthing. For this
assignment, you will create a written description of your roleplaying game in 1200 words.
Be prepared to present.
Visualizing your Video Game: Now that youve thought about your literary roleplayinggame, lets add some visual aspects. Turn your written description into a simulated video
game on either Flickr (still images) or YouTube (videos). On the due date a 1000wordrationale is also due. [Note: This assignment will be developed further.]
-
8/9/2019 Digital Literacy Honors Course Proposal (Katherine D. Harris)
3/6
Harris: Digital Literacy Proposal 3
Readings&AssignmentsScheduleDate Topic Readings AssignmentsDue1 Introduction to Digital
Humanities & Imagined(Social) Communities
Introduction to Class Social Networks:
Set up blogsTwitter (follow some Digerati Scholars)
Facebook GroupFlickr & YouTube
Incubator Classroom equipment
Defining Digital Humanities:
Medieval Help Desk (moving from scroll to codex)
(video)Interview with Brett Bobley, Director, NEH Office of
Digital Humanities
What is Web 2.0? (video)
Web 2.0: The Machine is Us/ing Us (Video)
HyperAttention 101 & 102, Howard Rheingold(video)
Benedict Anderson, ImaginedCommunities
(excerpt)
Guest Lecturer
Prof. Laura Mandell (video conferencing)
Sticky Assignment: What do
you Use (posted to Flickr) (inclass)
2 Print Culture &
Materiality of the Text
(Visit SJSU Special
Collections)
Technologies of WritingMatthew Kirschenbaum, Blog Entry, Technologies
of Writing Seminar, Folger InstituteEric Faden, A Fair(y) Use Tale [on Copyright
Principles] (video)
Morris Freedman, Why I Dont Read Books
Anymore, VirginiaQuarterlyReview
Jorge Luis Borges, Library of Babel & The Gardenof Forking Paths
Cory Doctorow, Writing in the Age of Distraction,
LocusMagazine
Presentations: Exploring
Current Scholarship (podcast
& video reports)
3 The History of Print
CultureOr
Incorporating
Aberrations into
Narrative and Print
Culture
Umberto Eco, IntheNameoftheRose(novel)
orMark Z. Danielewski, HouseofLeaves(novel)
4 (2nd day on novel)
Charles Dickens, GreatExpectations Serials & Three
Endings
Presentations: Exploring
Current Scholarship (podcast& video reports)
5 Man, Machine &Intelligence Jerome McGann, The Rationale of HypertextLev Manovich, TheLanguageofNewMedia(excerpts), New Media from Borges to HTML, NewMediaReader
Clifford Lynch, The Battle to Define the
Future of the Book in the Digital World, FirstMonday
Matt Kirschenbaum, Where Computer
Science and Cultural Studies Collide, The
Presentations: ExploringCurrent Scholarship(podcast & video reports)
-
8/9/2019 Digital Literacy Honors Course Proposal (Katherine D. Harris)
4/6
Harris: Digital Literacy Proposal 4
ChronicleReview
Carolyn Guertin, Handholding, Remixing andthe Instant Replay: New Narratives in aPostNarrative World,ACompaniontoDigitalLiteraryStudies
First Literary New Media Poem?William Gibson,Agrippa(ABookoftheDead)The Poem Running in Emulation: the poem &
its singleuse software (recovered inDecember 2008)
Guest LecturerProf. Carolyn Guertin (video conferencing)
6 Using the Tools toTake Us Farther:
Text Analysis
Scott McLemee, Literature to Infinity, Inside
HigherEd
Stephen Ramsay, Algorithmic Criticism,ACompaniontoDigitalLiteraryStudies
David Hoover, Quantitative Analysis andLiterary Studies,ACompaniontoDigital
LiteraryStudies
Tools
Collex, Juxta, TaPor
Guest Lecturer
Prof. Matt Jockers (inperson)
Presentations: ExploringCurrent Scholarship
(podcast & video reports)
7 Literary Archives &EBooks: Revising
Literature for theDigital World
Robert Darnton, Google and the Future ofBooks, NewYorkReviewofBooks
Johanna Drucker, The Virtual Codex fromPage Space to ESpace,ACompaniontoDigitalLiteraryStudies
Digitizing the Gutenberg Bible, NPR(podcast)Bertrand Gervais, Is There a Text on this
Screen?ACompaniontoDigitalLiteraryStudies
Ken Price, Electronic Scholarly Editions,ACompaniontoDigitalLiteraryStudies
John A. Walsh, Multimedia & MultiTasking: A
Survey of Digital Resources for NineteenthCentury Literary Studies,ACompanionto
DigitalLiterary
Studies
ArchivesAmericanWomensDimeNovelProject
PoetessArchive & ForgetMeNotArchiveInternetLibraryofEarlyJournalsWhitmanArchive
TheBookCoverArchive
InternetArchiveWaybackMachine
Presentations: ExploringCurrent Scholarship
(podcast & video reports)
-
8/9/2019 Digital Literacy Honors Course Proposal (Katherine D. Harris)
5/6
Harris: Digital Literacy Proposal 5
8 Video Games as
Literature?
Steven E. Jones, TheMeaningofVideoGames:Gaming&TextualStrategies (excerpts)Matt Kirschenbaum,ZoneofInfluence:AGameStudiesBlog (excerpt)Ian Bogost, TheExpressivePowerofVideo
Games (excerpts)McKenzie Wark, GamerTheoryon If:BookSpaceWar, 1stvideo game, NewMediaReader
CD Rom
Guest Lecturer
TBD (perhaps someone from SJSU ComputerScience Dept or Art & Design?)
Presentations: Exploring
Current Scholarship(podcast & video reports)
9 Presentations Presentations: ExploringCurrent Scholarship(podcast & video reports)
Adapting Literature to RolePlaying (Video) Games Presentations & Essays due
10 Born Digital
Literature
BornMagazineofArt&Literature
Jason Nelson, Game,Game,GameandAgainGame
Choose(digital novel)Nick Montfort,AdVerbum (game)List of Born Digital Literary
texts(?)Presentations: Exploring CurrentScholarship (podcast & video reports)
Vol. I, ElectronicLiteratureCollection
(primarily digital poetry)Simon Faithful,Adelaide (digital novel)Faade:AOne-ActInteractiveDrama
Grotesque,AGothicEpic
Selections from NewMediaReaderCDRom ofborn digital literatureVectors:JournalofCulture&Technologyina
DynamicVernacular(pick an article)Eastgate Publishers of Hypertexts (review
their site)
11 Presentations Visualizing Your VideoGame Assignment
Presentations & VisualEssays due
12 Social Networking isLiterary?
WikipediaDelicious (bookmarking)
Alan Liu, Developing a Wikipedia ResearchPolicyNoam Cohen, Wikipedia May Restrict Publics
Ability to Change Entries, NewYorkTimes
Presentations: ExploringCurrent Scholarship
(podcast & video reports)
-
8/9/2019 Digital Literacy Honors Course Proposal (Katherine D. Harris)
6/6
Harris: Digital Literacy Proposal 6
Twittering the Inauguration, Scholars Lab,
UVA
Guest Lecturer
Prof. David Silver (in person)
13 Blogging &FaceBooking asSocial Commentary
or Literature?
Jeremy Douglass, Writer
Response
Theory(excerpts)John Timmer, Professor Tweets about
Course, Ends Up Moving Whole Class Online,ArsPoetica
Bernardo A. Huberman, et al, Social Networks
that Matter: Twitter Under the Microscope,FirstMonday
Change Has Come to the WhiteHouse.govClive Thompson, Im So Digitally Close to You:Brave New World of Digital Intimacy, NewYorkTimes
Aimee Morrison, Blogs and Blogging: Text
and Practice,A
Companion
to
Digital
Literary
StudiesIs Academic Blogging an Oxymoron? a public
conversation between faculty bloggers andstudent bloggers in Humanities at UC Irvine
(video)
Guest Lecturers
Profs. Matt K. Gold & Jamie Skye Bianco (videoconference)
Presentations: ExploringCurrent Scholarship(podcast & video reports)
14 Presentations Charlotte Smith, ElegiacSonnets (sonnet
sequence for comparison to microblogging)
Presentations: Exploring
Current Scholarship
(podcast & video reports)
Assessment of MicroBlogging Essay due
15 WrapUp, Decisions,Revisions, ReMixing,
Mashups
What about Second Life?What is the future of the Humanities and its
scholarship?Are you a Digital Native?Are you a Digital Author?
Presentations: ExploringCurrent Scholarship
(podcast & video reports)