Syllabus - Undisciplined Cultures
Literature and Technology after Postmodernism
English 350-02, Fall 2001
Jay Clayton, Vanderbilt University
Read Edward Falco's hypertext, "Self-Portrait
as Child with Father" (26 March 1999) in The
Iowa Review Web.
Read Mary-Kim Arnold and Matthew Derby's hypertext,
"Kokura" in the Eastgate
Web Reading Room.
Monday -
View Suture (1993), directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel.
Read Jean Baudrillard, "The Ecstasy of Communication" (Reserve - Central Library).
For excerpts from Boudrillard's writings, see Baudrillard on the Web, a site maintained by Alan Taylor, University of Texas-Arlington. Read "On the Murderous Capacity of Images."Read Fredrick Jameson, excerpts from Ch. 1 of Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Reserve - Central Library).
Read Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin,"Introduction" and Ch. 1 of Remediation: Understanding New Media (Reserve - Central Library).
Optional: In relation to Espen Aaseth's comments in the last two paragraphs of his "Introduction" to the effect that the texts he studies "are not well suited for entry into the competition for literary canonization," check out this article from The New York Times from 9 September 2001. It reports on a controversy over the Prix Ars Electronica, which is awarded yearly for the best internet art. Dissent arose when the prize was awarded two years in a row to creative uses of the internet that did not fit easily into most definitions of "art."
Monday -
View Timecode (2000), directed by Mike Figgis.
Read Tom Stoppard, Arcadia (1993).
Read Jay Clayton, "Hacking the Nineteenth Century" (E-mail attachment).
Monday -
Read Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle, Chs. 10 and 15 (online text). Use any edition that reprints Darwin's final revisions (1860 or later), if you can find one. Otherwise use the 2nd edition (1845), which is the one I have put on reserve in Central Library.
Read Andrea Barrett, Ship Fever (1996), pp. 11-46, 59-122, and 159-254.
Monday -
Read Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Chs. 3 and 5 (Reserve - Central Library).
Read Roger McDonald, Mr. Darwin's Shooter (1998).
Brief discussion of Darwin's discoveries on the voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle by Ralph E. Taggart, Professor of Plant Biology, Michigan State University
Photograph of Darwin's Finch skins from London's Natural History Museum.
A good collection of online secondary sources.
Maps of Darwin's voyage:
Sunday - 6:30-9:00 p.m. - Calhoun 109
View Gattaca (1997), Andrew Niccol, dir.
Monday -
Read Philip Kerr, A Philosophical Investigation (1992).
Recommended:
An Epistemological Case Study: On Causality and Criminology by Snehal Patel and Samar Sharma. This site is a fictional account of a criminal investigation, based on Philip Kerr's book. It was composed by two undergraduates at Vanderbilt in a class on Genetics and Literature, Fall 2000.
Sunday - 6:30-9:00 p.m. - Calhoun 109
View Memento (2000), directed by Christopher Nolan.
Monday -
Read Claude E. Shannon, excerpt from The Mathematical Theory of Communication (1948; U of Illinois P, 1963), 3-6.
Read Alan Turing, "Computing Machines and Intelligence" (Reserve - Central Library).
Optional: Sign up to play The Turing Game.Read N. Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cibernetics, Literature, and Informatics (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1999), Ch. 1 - "Toward Embodied Virtuality" (Reserve - Central Library).
Read Albert Borgmann, Holding on to Reality: The Nture of Information at the Turn of the Millennium (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1999), Ch. 14 - "Virtuality and Ambiguity" (Reserve - Central Library).
Monday -
Read Richard Powers, The Gold Bug Variations (1991), "Aria" and Chs. I-XV
Read Edgar Allen Poe, "The Gold-Bug" (Reserve - Central Library).
Read Matt Ridley, "Preface" and Ch. 1, Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters (New York: HarperCollins, 1999), pp. 3-22 (Reserve - Central Library).
Monday -
Read Jay Clayton, "Genome Time" (Prometheus Files).
Sunday - 6:30-9:00 p.m. - Calhoun 109
View The Matrix (1999), directed by Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski.
Monday -
Read Richard Powers, Plowing the Dark (2000).
Read Janet Murray, excerpt from Hamlet on the Holodeck, printed in erb7 (Summer, 1998), an online journal.
Monday -
Read Margaret Morse, Virtualities: television, media art, and cyberculture, Part One, Chapter One, " Virtualities: A Conceptual Framework." This work is available to Vanderbilt University users only as an electronic resource from the Central Library. Look the book up on ACORN and follow the directions for reading online or downloading.
Read Espen Aarseth, "Computer Gme Studies, Year One," a short introduction to the first issue of the new journal Game Studies.
Read Jesper Juul, "Games Telling stories? -A brief note on games and narratives" in the first issue of Game Studies. Browse any of the other articles that catch your eye.
Sunday - 6:30-9:00 p.m. - Calhoun 109
View Blade Runner (1982), Ridley Scott, dir.
Monday -
Read Shelley Jackson, Patchwork Girl
(Eastgate Systems disk.)
Read Jay Clayton, "Concealed Circuits" (Prometheus Files).
Monday -
Read Jeanette Winterson, The PowerBook (2000).
Rembradt's 1835 Flora (discussed in Winterson, The PowerBook, p. 252
Rembradt's 1834 Flora. Note striped red and white tulip in hair-dress.
Preliminary draft of final papers due. These drafts may be anything from a five page precis of the paper you intend to compose to a full-blown version of the entire essay. This assignment will be ungraded--it's your chance to get comments on your intended project.
Monday - (Dec. 17) - Presentations. Meet at 4:00 and go until we have finished. Pizza will be served.
Friday (Dec. 21, 12:00 noon) - Research paper due