English 306: Topics in Humanities Computing

http://www.as.wvu.edu:8000/clc/Members/sbaldwin/courses/old/engl306f04
Professor Sandy Baldwin
charles.baldwin at mail.wvu.edu / 293-3107x452
Office Hours: T,R 1030-1125, ARM 203, and by appointment

"Computers are not only designed in language but are themselves equipment for language." Winograd and Flores

"A poem is a small (or large) machine made of words." William Carlos Williams

Description

ENGL 306 offers a sampler of major topics and debates in humanities computing. What is humanities computing? Is “humanities computing” a kind of oxymoron, two terms in perpetual tension? Or are they more interrelated and dependent, both concerned with writing and representation? Is one subordinate to the other – computing in the service of the humanities, or perhaps humanities as a minor sector of an increasingly computerized society?

In fact, humanities computing is less a discipline or field within computing or the humanities than a cluster of concerns that bridge humanities and computing, and cross into other disciplines as well. Humanities computing was already emerging as a field at the same time as the appearance of the first digital computers, but in another sense, humanities computing asks questions as old as written texts. One course goal is to gain expertise in the pragmatic application of humanities computing to textual analysis and representation. At the same time, we will be concerned with larger disciplinary issues, marking significant and problematic boundaries of humanities computing within a growing cyberculture. Finally, the aim is an orientation for future exploration and research. No technical knowledge is required.

Course topics map the major research areas in humanities computing, as well as sites of current controversy. Topics include:

• Digital literature and hypertext theory: new literary expression through digital technology
• The history of writing: from codex to digital textuality
• E-publishing, search engines, databases: the end of paper and the future of the book
• Knowledge representation, text analysis, encoding, markup: the semantic web and the convergence of all knowledge
• Cyberculture and new media studies: being online, virtual reality, and the wired future

Required Texts Available at the WVU Bookstore

• Mark Stephen Meadows, Pause and Effect: The Art of Interactive Narrative, Resource Page

• The New Media Reader [NMR], Ed. Nick Montfort and Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Resource Page Be sure to check out the CD that comes with the book!
• Writing Materials [WM], Ed. Evelyn B. Tribble and Anne Trubek, Resource Page

Requirements

• 8 reading responses out of a possible 9. R=response date. Posted to the group blogs 8x5=40%

• individual class presentation + presentation blog entry = 25%
• Group web project + class presentation 35%

  Groups must choose one of the following: 1) Digital Communities. Each member will choose a writing community on the web, e.g. a chat group, a moo, a blog. Each must participate in and read the community regularly, and keep a log/journal of your involvement. (As you observe the community, you may or may not want to announce your project.) How does the group create community and how does it adapt to communicating in its environment? What role does technology play in the identity of this community? What leads people to enter or leave the community? Each group member must combine the log with an analysis (minimum of 5 pages). As a group, write a reflection on the nature of digital communities and include annotated links to the communities studied. 2) New and Old and Odd Books. Each member will research the history and use of one unusual type of book or form of writing. (The Book of Hours is an example, but don’t choose this one.) Examples might be: hornbooks, nineteenth-century journals, pop-up books, comic books, web zines, e-books; but also graffitti, Braille, calligraphy, instant messaging, tattoos. How do you think this way of writing affect what is written? What are the characteristic qualities of the writing/book? What is interesting or significant about these modes of writing/books? Each member should write a report/analysis (5 page min). The group will also include a general meditation on writing / book technologies, and annotated links. 3) Libraries, Information, Knowledge. Each group member will choose a library to focus on. (One of the WVU libraries, or a local library.) Conduct an ethnography, including a careful description of the physical structures (interior/exterior). How do these structures define the purpose and mission of the building? Once you enter the library, do book or computers have more prominence? How are computers used? What writing/reading spaces are set up within the library? What other information spaces? Also look at the library’s web page. Write a critical/analytical description of the library; what practices is it constructed to encourage or discourage? Also, contact and interview a librarian about the use of computers and/or information technology. What is the library’s policy? Is it making using the library easier or not? (Be sure to draw up a list of questions beforehand.) Group web sites will include descriptions (3 page min.), interviews (3 page min.), group reflection on libraries and information, and annotated web links. In general: 1) All writings should refer to and incorporate the appropriate secondary material from the course reading. 2) All this material will be uploaded, formatted, and linked together on your group folder. All final projects must include raw materials (notes, etc.) as well as completed writings. Groups will decide how to divide the work. 3) The web site is intended both as a reflection of your class work but also as a contribution to the distribution and creation of web-based knowledge on humanities computing. Deadlines: Nov. 9 Handouts on grading criteria and technical information for setting up the web site. Nov. 11 By the end of class, groups must decide which project option to go with. Nov. 16 and 18 In-class work on project. Dec. 7 and 9 Group presentations. Dec. 14 All aspects of project complete by midnight. Structured Text Cheat Sheet

• Occasional out of class meetings in virtual writing environments
• Join Humanist-L, the listserv for humanities computing
• Participation and attendance are assumed. Failure to fulfill this requirement can lower your grade substantially.

Schedule

Aug 24

Introduction and Definitions
Links: IATH, VOS, CTheory, EPC

Aug 26

Borges, "The Garden of Forking Paths" NMR
Bush, "As We May Think" NMR
Recommended: On the Memex

Aug 31

Nelson, "Computer Lib/Dream Machines" NMR
Nelson, "A File Structure for the Complex, the Changing, and the Indeterminate" NMR
Recommended: Internet Timeline and Little History of the World Wide Web, Microsoft Comic Chat
R

Topic :: Digital Narrative

Sept 2

Murray, from Hamlet on the Holodeck WM
Coover, "The End of Books" NMR
Joyce, "Siren Shapes" NMR
Hypertexts: My Body a Wunderkammer, My Boyfriend Came Back from the War
Recommended: Resource page for Murray

Sept 7

Aarseth, "Non-linearity and Literary Theory" NMR
Hypertexts/Digital Narratives: Blindspot, These Waves of Girls, Ballad of Sand and Soot, Donnie Darko
Recommended: Anatomy of Google
R

Sept 9

Burroughs, "The Cut-Up Method of Brion Gysin" NMR
Gamelike / Environments: The Intruder, Filmtext, 6ahoover/The Bloody Chamber, World of Awe, Lair of the Marrow Monkey, Secret Garden of Mutabor
Kerry speech. Bush speech

Sept 14

Meadows, Pause and Effect, Chap 1
Banja
Recommended: Mark Meadows
R

Sept 16

Meadows, Pause and Effect, Chap 2
McCloud, "Time Frames" NMR
Recommended: Shakespeare Programming Language, Scott McLoud, Cloudmakers, Liquid Stage, Jimmy Corrigan, Crutch, Devil's Tramping Ground, Memex Engine, Ambient Machines, demain/When I am King

Sep 21

Meadows, Pause and Effect, Chap 3
Recommended: Marcos Novak, Deus Ex, Maurice Benayoun, Ultima Online, Virtools, Architecture of the Holocaust Memorial, Shakespeare Internet Editions, Habbo Hotel
R

Sep 23

Meadows, Pause and Effect, Chap 4
Recommended: Myst

Topic :: Writing

Sep 28

Plato, from Phaedrus WM
Birkerts, "Into the Electronic Millenium" WM
Bolter, "The New Dialogue" WM
Recommended: Resource pages for Birkerts and Bolter
R

Sep 30

D. Baron, "From Pencils to Pixels" WM
Recommended: Resource page for Baron

Oct 5

Trithemius, from "In Praise of Scribes" WM
N. Baron, "The Art and Science of Handwriting" WM
Franklin, from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Recommended: Resource pages for Trithemius, Baron, and Franklin; Medieval Images of the word, Self-Improvement Blogs, More self-improvement, Journal Jar
R

Oct 7

Eisenstein, "Some Features of Print Culture" WM
Mark Twain, "The First Writing Machines" WM
Recommended: Resource pages for Eisenstein and Twain

Oct 12

Bolter, "Seeing and Writing" NMR
Parker, "Absolute Powerpoint" WM
Recommended: Resource page for Parker

Oct 14

Class Cancelled.

Topic :: Reading

Oct 19

Mangruel, "The Shape of the Book" WM
Porter, "Reading is Bad for Your Health" WM
Recommended: Resource pages for Mangruel and Porter, Internet Addiction, Computers and Health, More on Health, Codex, Clay, Papyrus, Book of Hours, Printing Press, Hornbook, Cuneiform, Cuneiform
R

Oct 21

Douglass, from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Dougalss WM
Malcolm X, from Autobiography of Malcolm X WM
Recommended: Resource pages for Douglass and Malcolm X, OED

Oct 26

Sosnoski, "Hyper-readers and their reading engines" WM**
Lesser, "The Conversion" WM
Recommended: Resource pages for Sosnoksi and Lesser
R

Oct 28

Turkle, "Virtuality and Its Discontents" WM
Recommended: Resource page for Turkle

Topic :: Knowledge, Libraries, Networks

Nov 2

Class Cancelled for Election Day
R

Nov 4

Borges, "The Library of Babel" WM
Berners-Lee, "The World Wide Web" NMR
Nelson, "Proposal for a Univesal Electronic Publishing System and Archive" NMR
Recommended: Resource page for Borges, Nelson's Project Xanadu, NMR CDROM on "Sketchpad Grail and Dynabook," and alternative browsers: I/O/D, 1:1, Browser Gestures, Netomat, Shredder, Riot

Nov 9

Pang, "The Work of the Encylopedia in the Age Electronic Reproduction" WM
Duguid and Brown, "The Social Life of Documents" WM
Baker, "Deadline" WM
Recommended: Resource pages for Pang, Duguid and Brown and Baker

Nov 11

Knowledge Representation: TextArc, The Visual Thesaurus, History Flow, Wikipedia
Recommended: Atlas of Cyberspace, Temporal Modeling Project: Storyboard, Blogdex

Nov 16

Gissing, from New Grub Street WM
Roberts, "Virtual Grub Street" WM
Bagdikian, "The Endless Chain" NMR
Recommended: Resource pages for Gissing and Roberts, Encyclopedia Britannica, Media Ownership

Topic :: Cyberculture

Nov 18

Gibson, "Johnny Mnemonic" WM
Licklider, "Man-Computer Symbiosis" NMR
Bolt, "Put-That-There" NMR
Recommended: Resource page for Gibson, Glossary and Characters in Johnny Mnemonic

Nov 23

Thanksgiving

Nov 25

Thanksgiving

Nov 30

Agre, "Surveillance and Capture" NMR
Recommended: Carnivore, IBM Surveillance for Universities, Institute for Applied Autonomy, Surveillance Camera Players, Bureau of Inverse Technology, NYC Surveillance Camera Project, Big Brother

Dec 2

Millar, "Filling the Void" WM
Cass Sunstein, "Fragmentation and Cybercascades" WM
Resource pages for Millar and Sunstein

Dec 7

Morningstar and Farmer, "The Lesson of Habitat" NMR
Virtual Worlds: Adobe Atmosphere, Habbo Hotel,Active Worlds, The Palace, Desktop Theater

Dec 9

Conclusions

Dec 14

Final project uploaded by 12 midnight