Digital Literacy Honors Course Proposal (Katherine D. Harris)

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.


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.]


3/6


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


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)


4/6


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




5/6


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?)


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




6/6


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)


Current Scholarship


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?



Documents

Digital Literacy Honors Course Proposal (Katherine D. Harris)