Richard Lanham, The Electronic Word

READING

   The Electronic Word is a collection of interconnected essays. The interconnection is after the fact, since the pieces were written at different times and for different audiences. The real value of this work, then, lies in the strength of reasoning and example in the individual essays. Lanham is a professor (emeritus now) of Rhetoric at UCLA. Since we have no Rhetoric department at San Francisco State University, you may be unfamiliar with the nature of such a program. If so, do some exploring on the UCLA and UCBerkeley websites.
    In this seminar, we'll read and discuss:

September 7-- Preface and Chapter 1, "The Electronic Word: Literary Study and the Digital Revolution"
September 14 -- Chapter 2: "Digital Rhetoric and the Digital Arts"
September 21-- Chapter 5: "Electronic Textbooks and University Structures"
September 28 -- Chapter 7: "The 'Q' Question"

POSTS

By the designated date, you should post to the cspace eGroup on the following questions.
The first person to respond may address the issue directly. Everyone else following the first person needs to make some reference to an issue raised by the previous poster or posters.

September 7

Discuss:

1) "The printed book seems destined to move to the m argin of our literate culture.... What will be lost is not literacy itself, but the literacy of print, for electronic technology offers us a new kind of book and new ways to write and read." Bolter (in Lanham)
OR
2) "Digitized common ground" and the new Gesamtkunstwerk

September 14

Your choice: Futurism, Christo, "Interactivity deflates solemnity," the aesthetics of zooming, or....

September 21

1) Why is interdisciplinary humanities in the best position to capitalize on the emergence of digital culture, and are we (at SFSU) taking advantage of our position?
OR
2) Discuss the first, fourth, or fifth of Lanham's "oracular speculations"

September 28

Do/should the humanities humanize?

Janet Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck

READING

   Murray was one of a stellar faculty at MIT concerned with the social and cognitive dimensions of cyberspace. Sherry Turkle, Patti Maes, Marvin Minsky, Seymour Pappert, Amy Bruckman -- all of them have done very important work in analyzing, advocating, and putting into practice some of the most fruitful techniques in cyberspace for the building of community and the understanding of human consciousness.
Here's the schedule for discussing Hamlet on the Holodeck:

October 5: Introduction and Part I: "A NEW MEDIUM FOR STORYTELLING"
October 12: Part II: "THE AESTHETICS OF THE MEDIUM"
October 19: Part III: "PROCEDURAL AUTHORSHIP"
October 26: Part IV: "NEW BEAUTY, NEW TRUTH"

POSTS

For this book, members of the seminar will set up an eGroup and design at least four discussion topics. The group moderators can set up their own rules (i.e., do people have to respond to the previous post? Etc.)

Steven Johnson, Interface Culture

READING

Interface design is fast becoming an field of study with ambitions far beyond the building of useful and easy-to-operate software. For writers such as Johnson, David Gelernter, Donald Norman, and Brenda Laurel, the study of human/computer interface involves issues of psychology, epistemology, linguistics, algorithm coding, and even sound business practice.
Here's our schedule for discussion:

Novermber 2: Preface ("Electric Speed"), Chapter 1 ("Bitmapping"), and Chapter 2("The Desktop")
November 9: Chapter 3 ("Windows") and 4 ("Links)
November 16: Chapter 5 ("Text"), Chapter 6 ("Agents") and Conclusion ("Infinity Imagined")

POSTS

Same rules as above