Hypertext: Reading and Writing Online

Week 1 (January 9): Overview

• Thursday - Calhoun 423
  • Course procedures and requirements

Week 2 (January 14-16): Taking a Critical Approach to the Web

• Tuesday - Calhoun 423
• Read Ed Falco's hypertext short story for the Web, "Charmin' Cleary." (This story is presented by the Eastgate Web Reading Room.)
  
  
• Thursday - Garland Computer Lab
• View Warriors of the Net
• Kevin Kelly, "Making My Own Music," NYT (October 12, 2002). Prometheus (Files Module)
• Create initial web page.
• First Paper Assignment.

Week 3 (January 21-23): Hypermedia on the Web

• Tuesday - Calhoun 423
  • Read Lawrence Lessig, "Four Puzzles from Cyberspace," from Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (1999), pp. 9-19. (Reserve Room - Central Library)
    
    
• Thursday - Garland Computer Lab
  • Terri Ford and Erik Lover, "Story Problem."  Click on the link for the story or for the magazine. After the introductory series of words beginning "Please explore ... renew ... discover" has finished, click anywhere on the screen. The frontpage of bornmagazine: art and literature appears. Scroll down the menu on the top of the page to 2002, record number 39. Click on the item titled "Story Problem." You need Macromedia Shockwave to play this hypermedia piece. If you do not have Shockwave, a message will tell you so. Download and install Shockwave. Click on "Begin a new performance."
  • Also, be sure to read the Lessig assignment.
  • Rough draft of first paper due.
    • Name your file as follows: "Lastname - paper 2 - draft"
    • Post your file both to Prometheus (Files module, Jay Clayton's Inbox) and to your VU-Space.
    • Post your music file to your VU-Space.
  • Writing workshop.

Week 4 (January 28-30): Monsters and Cyborgs

• Monday (conferences - Benson 319)
  
• Tuesday - Calhoun 423
  • Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818). Read Vol. I. (If your edition does not divide the work into three volumes, then just read the first third of the novel.)
    
• Wednesday (conferences - Benson 319)
  
• Thursday - Garland Computer Lab
• Ridley Scott (dir.), Blade Runner (1982; Director's Cut, 1992)

• Barnaby J. Feder, "Obscure Show with Small Products" NYT (October 7, 2002). Prometheus (Collaborative Files)

• Second Paper Assignment.

• Friday
  • Final draft of first paper due, 4:00 p.m. Name your file as follows: "Lastname, Firstname - paper 1, final"
    • Post your file both to Prometheus (Files module, Collaborative Files) and to your VU-Space.

Week 5 (February 4-6): Fictions and Hyperfictions of Frankenstein

• Tuesday - Calhoun 423
  
• Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818) - Read vol. II.
• View 3-minute film from MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab on Cog, The Humanoid Robot.
  
• Demonstration of Patchwork Girl
• Second Paper Assignment.
  
  
• Thursday - Garland Computer Lab
• Shelley Jackson, Patchwork Girl (Eastgate Systems disk.) Read "Graveyard" and "Journal"
• Rough draft of first two lexias of second paper due. Name your file as follows: "Lastname - paper 2 - draft"
  • Post your file both to Prometheus (Files module, Collaborative Files) and to your VU-Space. Name your file as follows: "Lastname - paper 2 - draft."
• Writing workshop

Week 6 (February 11-13):

• Tuesday - Calhoun 423
• Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818) - Read vol. III
  
  
• Thursday - Garland Computer Lab
  • Final draft of second paper due. Name your file as follows: "Lastname, - paper 2"
    • Post your file to Prometheus (Files module, Jay Clayton's Inbox). Please name your file in your wordprocessor and in Prometheus "Lastname, Firstname - paper 2."
• Shelley Jackson, Patchwork Girl, cont. Read "Story," sections "M/S," "Severance," and "Seagoing."
  • Optional reading (critical works 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.)
    • Rita Railey, "Of Dolls and Monsters: An Interview with Shelley Jackson," The Iowa Reveiw Web (Fall 2002).

Week 7 (February 18-20): Robotics

• Tuesday - Calhoun 423
• Shelley Jackson, Patchwork Girl (Eastgate Systems disk.) Read "Story," sections "Seance," "Falling Apart," and "Rethinking."
• View 3:2-minute film from MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab on Kismet, The Sociable Robot.
• Rodney Brooks, Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us (2002) - (Reserve Room - Central Library)
  
  
• Thursday - Garland Computer Lab
• Steven Spielberg, (dir.), Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001)
• Join FrankenMoo

Week 8 (February 25-27): Multimedia Narrative

• Tuesday - Calhoun 423
  • Irwin Winkler (dir.), The Net (1995)
  • Third Paper Assignment.
• Thursday - Garland Computer Lab
• Barry Levinson (dir.), Disclosure (1994)

Spring Break (March 3-11)

Week 9 (March 11-13):

• Tuesday - Calhoun 423
  • Third paper due. Name your file as follows: "Lastname, Firstname - paper 3, final" - (Third Paper Assignment.)
    • Post your file both to Prometheus (Files module, Jay Clayton's Inbox) and to your VU-Space. Please name your file in your wordprocessor and in Prometheus "Lastname, Firstname - paper 3."
• Walter Mosley, Futureland (2002), Ch. 1, "Whispers in the Dark," Ch. 3 "Doctor Kismet," and Ch. 4, "Angel's Island."
  
  
• Thursday - Garland Computer Lab
• Walter Mosley, Futureland (2002), Ch. 5, "The Electric Eye" and Ch. 9, "The Nig in Me"
  

Week 10 (March 18-20):

• Tuesday - Calhoun 423
• View Suture (1993), directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel.
  
  
• Thursday - Garland Computer Lab
• Richard Powers, Galatea 2.2 (1996). Read first third of the novel.

Week 11 (March 25-27):

• Tuesday - Calhoun 423
• Richard Powers, Galatea 2.2 (1996). Read two-thirds of the novel.
  
  
• Thursday - Garland Computer Lab
• Read Alan Turing, "Computing Machines and Intelligence", Sections 1-3 (online).
• Read about The Turing Game (online).

Week 12 (April 1-3): Hackers

• Tuesday - Calhoun 423
• Richard Powers, Galatea 2.2 (1996). Finish the novel.
  
  
• Thursday - Garland Computer Lab
  • Multimedia Poetry. Read four poems by Felix Jung on his website synesthesia. Please open this site <http://webdelsol.com/Synesthesia/#> in a separate window using Internet Explorer (it won't work in Netscape).
    • Enter the site, click on Gallery, and then read:
      • "Young Couple, Ohio State Fair"
      • "One Fiction"
      • "Cruelty"
    • Then click on the circle in the lower right corner to reveal the navigation bar. Go to Archives and read:
      • "Miss Charlotte Brown, Librarian, Goes Mad"
  • Quiz on Galatea 2.2
  • Fourth Paper Assignment

Week 13 (April 8-10):

• Tuesday - Calhoun 423
• View Memento (2000), directed by Christopher Nolan.
  
  
• Thursday - Garland Computer Lab
• Draft of fourth paper due. (Fourth Paper Assignment)
  • Post a draft of your website to your folder in the classes area of VUspace.
    
    
• Friday - Conferences

Week 14 (April 15-17): Patchwork Girl, II

• Monday - Conferences
  
  
• Tuesday - Calhoun 423
• Jorge Luis Borges, "The Library of Babel"
  
  
• Thursday - Garland Computer Lab
• Judy Zellen, "Crowds and Power" online (Whitney Net Art, October 2002)
• Final draft of fourth paper due. Name your file as follows: "Lastname, Firstname - paper 4, final"
  • Post your file to Prometheus (Files module, Jay Clayton's Inbox)

Week 15 (April 22): Conclusion

• Tuesday - Calhoun 423

• 4 hypertext papers will count for 70% of the grade.
  
  
• Completion of daily assignments of reading and web design will count for 30% of the grade.
  
  
• Since this class is a seminar, attendance is important. Students should have no more than 3 unexcused absences in the course of the semester.