Hypertext: Reading and Writing Online

Week 1 (January 14): Overview

• Thursday (VH 114)

Week 2 (January 19-21): Web Page Design

• Tuesday (computer lab, Garland 119): Create initial web page.
• Hypertext Concepts (Karin Schlegel, May 28, 1996)
• Hypertext and HTML (McMaster University, c. 1995-96)
• A Beginner's Guide to HTML (NCSA, University of Illinois, Nov. 4, 1998)
• Thursday (computer lab, Garland 119): Web page development.
• Stuart Moulthrop, "Straight Talk for Troubled Times, Or, The Street Finds Its Uses for Things"(Closing address for Hypertext '98, a conference held in Pittsburgh, June 24, 1998)
• In class: Post links assignment.
• Recommended reading:
• Stuart Moulthrop, A Subjective Chronology of Literary Hypertext (10/9/98)

Week 3 (January 26-28): The Hacker Heritage

• Tuesday (VH 114)
• Bruce Sterling, The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier - "Preface to the Electronic Release," "Introduction," and "Part 1: Crashing the System"
• Wednesday (7:00 p.m. - Calhoun 109): View Hackers (1995)
• Thursday (computer lab)
• Rough draft of 2nd paper due (5 pp.) - Autobiographical narrative to contribute to the "Virtually 21" collaborative web site - Bring rough draft of paper to class on Windows disk or post it to your VUspace folder.
• In class: email attachment of paper to classmate for "Peer Review"
• In class: Web page development: Post a selection of your classmate's autobiographical narrative to your personal web page.

Week 4 (February 2-4): The Hacker Heritage II

• Tuesday (conferences - Benson 314)
• Bruce Sterling, The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier - "Part 2: The Digital Underground"
• Wednesday (conferences - Benson 314)
• Thursday (computer lab)
• Bruce Sterling, The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier - "Part 3: Law and Order"
• In class: Post revision of 2nd paper, the autobiographical narrative, to your personal web page - Bring revised paper to class on Windows disk or post it to VUspace.

Week 5 (February 9-11): Gender in Cyberspace

• Tuesday (VH 114)
• Bruce Sterling, The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier - "Part 4: The Civil Libertarians" and "Electronic Afterword to The Hacker Crackdown, New Years' Day, 1994"
• Thursday (computer lab)
• Read Julian Dibbell, "A Rape in Cyberspace"
• Browse Shannon McRae's Homepage
• In class: Web development: Post selections of autobiographical narratives to class space (Class Folder/engl115w_68).

Week 6 (February 16-18): Gender in Cyberspace II

• Tuesday (VH 114)
• Pamela Gilbert, "On Space, Sex and Stalkers," (A paper by an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin.  It appears in a special issue of Women and Performance, 17  (c. 1997).
• Browse the rest of the special issue "Sexuality and Cyberspace."
• Resource: Sandy Stone's Homepage (Allucquere Rosanne Stone, University of Texas, is author of The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age [MIT Press, 1995] and numerous essays on gender and cyberspace, some of which are available online at this site.  See especially "Violation and Virtuality.")
• Thursday (computer lab)
• Mark Bernstein, "Patterns of Hypertext" (Essay [1998] on varieties of ways to design hypertexts by the technical head at Eastgate Systems.)
• In class: Begin designing collaborative web site for "Virtually 21"

Week 7 (February 22-25): Cyborgs and Monstrosity

• Monday (7:00 p.m. - Garland 220): View Ridley Scott, Blade Runner (1992)
• Tuesday (VH 114)
• Blade Runner, Postmodernism, and the Owl of Minerva (Excerpt from Jay Clayton, "Concealed Circuits: Frankestein's Monster, the Medusa, and the Cyborg," Raritan 15 (1996): 53-69.)
• Browse: 2019: Off-World (Blade Runner Page) (Comprehensive and well-organized list of links to Blade Runner sites.)
• Rough draft of 3rd paper due (5 pp.).  Argument: "Virtually 21" -  Email the rough draft of your paper to the class homework email address.  Subject line: Third Paper--Rough Draft
• Thursday (computer lab)
• In class: email attachment of paper to assigned classmate for "Peer Review" -  You should post your rough draft to your private VUspace so that it will be available to you at the computer lab.

Week 8 (March 2-4): Cyborgs and Borders

• Tuesday (VH 114)
• Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto" (Read the first section, "An Ironic Dream of a Common Language for Women in the Integrated Circuit," pp. 149-55.  This site contains the complete text of "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, 1991), pp.149-181.)
• Browse: Border Crossings (Links on cyborgs and Donna Haraway.  Maintained by Karla Tonella, University of Iowa; last modified 1/10/98.)
• Final version of 3rd paper due (5 pp.).  Argument: "Virtually 21" -  Email the final version of your paper to the class homework email address.  Subject line: Third Paper--Final Version
• Thursday (computer lab)
• Nancy Kaplan, "E-Literacies: Politexts, Hypertexts, and Other Cultural Formations in the Late Age of Print" (Hypertext version of keynote address for the Second Domains of Literacy Conference, the Institute of Education, University of London, September 1-3, 1994.  Posted: January 24, 1995;  Last updated: December 17, 1997.)
• In class: Web development--work on collective site for "Virtually 21."

Spring Break (March 6-14)

Week 9 (March 16-19): The Long Information Age

• Tuesday (VH 114)
• Tom Stoppard, Arcadia, Act I, pp. 1-52
• Thursday (computer lab): Friday (4:00 p.m.)
• Chaos theory.
• Recursion
• Ada Lovelace

Week 10 (March 23-25): The Long Information Age, II

• Tuesday (VH 114)
• Tom Stoppard, Arcadia, Act II, pp. 53-97
• Thursday (computer lab
• 2 page papers on individual topics for "The Arcadia Web."
• Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, "A White Paper on Information," (Portions delivered as closing plenary address to Digital Arts and Culture 98, at the University of Bergen, November 28, 1998; last modified, December 6, 1998.)
• Browse Kirschenbaum's Homepage.
• Design collective web site, "The Arcadia Web."

Week 11 (March 30 - April 1): Hyperfiction

• Tuesday (VH 114)
• Judy Malloy and Cathy Marshall, "Forward Anywhere."
• Recommended: Carolyn Guyer, "Written on the Web" (Short article for Feed, an online magazine, which surveys the state of web fiction as of September, 1995.  To members of the class: if you receive a Password dialogue box, simply click Cancel and the story will come up.)
• Browse: Judy Malloy's Homepage
• Browse: Cathy Marshall's Homepage
• Resources (lists):
• Tom Goldpaugh, Hypertext Sites and Essays (Well-annotated list of some of the leading figures in hypertext writing.  Some of the links are currently broken.  Last modified, January 11, 1999.)
• Michael Shumate, "Hyperizons: Hypertext Fiction" (Once--and probably still--the most comprehensive list of hypertext fiction.  It is annotated in places.  Unfortunately, the site appears not to have been updated since July, 1997.)
• Michael Joyce, "Some Hypertext Resources" (List of recommended Eastgate and web-based hypertexts constructed by a pioneer of hypertext for his composition course, Spring 1998.)
• Thursday (computer lab)
• Judy Malloy and Cathy Marshall, "Forward Anywhere."  (cont.)
• Recommended: Judy Malloy, "Hypernarrative in the Age of the Web" (Short article for National Endowment for the Arts, Art Forms page,  which reflects on the state of web fiction at least as late as Fall, 1997.)
• 2 page papers on individual topics for "The Arcadia Web."

Week 12 (April 6-8): Hyperfiction, II

• Tuesday (VH 114)
• Michael Joyce, Twelve Blue (First web-based hyperfiction by the author of one of the earliest and best-known hypertext fictions.)
• Thursday (computer lab)
• Carolyn Guertin, "Queen Bees and the Hum of the Hive: An Overview of Feminist Hypertext's Subversive Honeycombings" (Accomplished overview and assessment of latest trends in hypertext by women.  Dated at least after May, 1998.)
• Resources (criticism): Mark Bernstein, "Chasing Our Tails" (Intelligent discussion of the existing criticism of hypertext, written in brief hypertextual segments.  March, 1997.)
• 2 page papers on individual topics for "The Arcadia Web."

Week 13 (April 13-15): Patchwork Girl

• Tuesday (computer lab)
• Shelley Jackson, Patchwork Girl(Eastgate Systems disk.)
• Thursday (computer lab)
• Shelley Jackson, Patchwork Girl, cont. (Eastgate Systems disk.)
• Recommended (critical work on Shelley Jackson):
• Raine Koskimaa, "Visual Structuring of Hyperfiction Narratives" (Article in the hypertext journal ebr6, Winter 97/98.  Contains discussions of Michael Joyce's Afternoon, a story, Stuart Moulthrop's Victory Garden, and Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl.)Transcript of a chatroom discussion with Shelley Jackson (In HotWired, the online magazine, 12 March 1996)
• George Landow, "Stitching Together Narrative, Sexuality, Self: Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl"(Short book review by one of the pioneers of hypertext theory.)
• Student comments and essays on Patchwork Girl (from George Landow's courses at Brown in 1996 and 1998)
• Maria Aline Salgueiro Seabra Ferreira, University of Aveiro, Portugal, "Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl and Angela Carter's The Passion of New Eve: A Comparative Reading" (On George Landow's Cyberspace and Critical Theory Web at Brown.)
• 2 page papers on individual topics for "The Arcadia Web."

Week 14 (April 20-22): Patchwork Girl, II

• Tuesday (computer lab)
• Shelley Jackson, Patchwork Girl, cont. (Eastgate Systems disk.)
• Thursday (computer lab)
• Shelley Jackson, Patchwork Girl, cont. (Eastgate Systems disk.)
• 2 page papers on individual topics for "The Arcadia Web."

Week 15 (April 27): Conclusion

• Tuesday (computer lab)