English 295 - Postmodernism and the Culture of Cyberspace

Vanderbilt University

Professor Jay Clayton
Fall 1996
MWF 1:10-2:15
Tolman 222

Description:

What is cyberspace and how does it relate to the literature, movies, music, art, lifestyles, politics, and sexuality of the postmodern world?  The word "cyberspace," coined by the science fiction writer William Gibson in 1984, refers to the virtual world created by communication over the internet.  Debates about this new mode of experience swirl around questions of pornography on the internet, hacking, race and gender stereotypes, First Amendment rights, freedom of information, and copyright.  Literary scholars argue about how computers will transform research, textual editing, models of reading and writing, and the nature of literature.  Novelists and film makers attempt to imagine the future of a wired society, while corporate culture strives to cash in on the World Wide Web.

This course will explore the emerging culture of cyberspace through readings of cyberpunk fiction; novels about the boundary between human and artificial life; movies that use cyborgs and virtual reality to speculate about the role of technology in society; hypertext fiction, which must be read on the computer and attempts to banish linear sequence; critical writing about the future of the internet; and literary theory, including works on the nature of postmodernism, the definition of cyberspace, and the future of criticism, scholarship, and editing in an age of hypertext.

No computer expertise is required.  Although there will be frequent assignments requiring access to the World Wide Web, the techniques for using the net will be explained for those who have no previous experience.  Each student will construct his or her own Web page; the class will have its own interactive computer bulletin board; and all writing assignments will be turned in and graded by email. Computer illiterates and rank beginners are encouraged to sign on.

Readings:

• Most assigned readings will be on the web.
• Photocopied materials will be available in the Reserve Room of the Library.  They may be checked out for 2 hours.
• Shelley Jackson, Patchwork Girl (Eastgate Systems disk, Rand Bookstore)
• Wiiliam Gibson, Neuromancer (Rand Bookstore)
• Richard Powers, Galatea 2.2 (Rand Bookstore)

Requirements:

• Weekly participation in class newsgroup
• Hypertext project
• Web page project

Semester Schedule

Week 1: Introduction

Aug. 28 (Wed.) - Class procedures
Aug. 30 (Fri.) - Entering Cyberspace (microcomputer lab, Garland Hall)

• Viewing: The Net
• Surfing (in class): Kevin Hughes, "What is the Internet?";  Hypertext and the Web;  HTML and URLs
• Recommended: A Beginner's Guide to HTML

• Reading: Mark Dery, "Flame Wars," in Dery, ed. Flame Wars (Reserve Room)
• Surfing (in class): Literature Resources on the Web. IATH;  Voice of the Shuttle;  Jack Lynch's page at Upenn; Victorian Web;  The Electronic Text Center at UVA: The Modern English Collection;  CETH

Sept. 9 (Mon.)

• Reading: William Gibson, Neuromancer
• Recommended: Study Guide for William Gibson: Neuromancer

Sept. 11 (Wed.) - Reading:

• William Gibson, Neuromancer (Cont.)
• Bruce Sterling, "Preface" to Mirrorshades
• Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, "Cyberpunk and Neuromanticism"

Sept. 13 (Fri.) - (microcomputer lab, Wilson Hall)

• Reading: William Gibson, Neuromancer (completed)
• Surfing (in class): ChibaMoo

Sept. 15 (Sun.) - Viewing: Ridley Scott, Blade Runner (1992)
Sept. 16 (Mon.) - Surfing: 2019: Off-World (Blade Runner Page)
Sept. 18 (Wed.) - Reading:

• Bruce Sterling, "Cyberpunk in the Nineties"
• Bruce Sterling, "Twenty Evocations"

Sept. 22 (Sun.) - Viewing: James Cameron, Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Sept. 23 (Mon.)

• Reading: Donna Haraway, "A Manifesto for Cyborgs."  
• Surfing: Border Crossings (resource page); Hyperlink to Donna Haraway (resource page)

Sept. 25 (Wed.) - Reading:

• Kathleen Woodward, "From Virtual Cyborgs to Biological Time Bombs: Technocriticism and the Material Body," in Culture on the Brink, pp. 47-64 (Reserve Room)
• Margaret Morse, "What Do Cyborgs Eat? Oral Logic in an Information Society," in Culture on the Brink, pp. 157-89 (Reserve Room)

Sept. 27 (Fri.) - Reading: Allison Fraiberg, "Of Aids, Cyborgs, and Other Indiscretions: Resurfacing the Body in the Postmodern."   (No class meeting--attend Patricia Meyer Spacks lecture on Monday, 4:10-5:00, Wilson 126)

Sept. 29 (Sun.) - Viewing: James Cameron, Aliens (1986)
Sept. 30 (Mon.)

• Reading: Shannon McRae, "Coming Apart at the Seams: Sex, Text and the Virtual Body";  Julian Dibbell, "A Rape in Cyberspace"
• Lecture: Patricia Meyer Spacks, "Arrangements of Self-Love" - 4:10-5:00 (Wilson 126)
• Surfing: Visit Shannon McRae's Homepage

Oct. 2 (Wed.)

• Reading: Allucquere Rosanne (Sandy) Stone, "Violation and Virtuality."
• Surfing: Visit Sandy Stone's Homepage;  Cybergrrl Webstation

Oct. 4 (Fri.) -

• Reading: Keng Chua, "Gender and the Web."  
• Workshop: Introduction to Web Page Construction (microcomputer lab, Wilson Hall)

Week 7:  Hypertext: An Introduction

Oct. 6 (Sun.) - Viewing: Lawnmower Man
Oct. 7 (Mon.) - Reading:

• Jay David Bolter, Writing Space, Ch. 1 (Reserve Room)
• George P. Landow, Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology, Ch.1
• Richard Lanham, The Electronic Word, Ch. 4

Oct. 9 (Wed.) - Reading:

• Sven Birkerts, "The Fate of the Book" (Conference Presentation, September 15-16, 1995)
• Jerome McGann, "Radiant Textuality"

Oct. 11 (Fri.) - Workshop: Construct a practice web page(microcomputer lab, Wilson Hall).  In Netscape 3.0 Gold, click on the "File" menu, then choose "New Document."  From the popup menu that appears, choose "From Wizard."  Read directions, then press "Start." Complete as many of the steps as you have time for.  If you want to go to another web site while working on yours, click "File," then "New Web Browser."  This will open a second copy of Netscape, which you can browse at your leisure, looking for URLs or images to copy.  Save your web page twice: once to your folder on the Wilson Lab server, then again on a floppy disk.  Bring the disk to class (with your name on it) Monday.

Week 8: Hypertext Theory/Fiction

Oct. 13 (Sun.) - Viewing: Lawnmower Man II
Oct. 14 (Mon.) - Reading:

• George P. Landow, "What's a Critic to Do?: Critical Theory in the Age of Hypertext," in Landow (ed.), Hyper/Text/Theory, pp. 1-48 (Reserve Room)
• Stuart Moulthrop, "Rhizome and Resistance: Hypertext and the Dreams of a New Culture," in Hyper/Text/Theory, pp. 299-319 (Reserve Room)

Oct. 16 (Wed.) - Reading: Shelley Jackson, Patchwork Girl.  From the Title Page, follow the link to Sources.  Then, after returning to the Title Page, follow the link to Phrenology and complete all the links that open out from this page.  Feel free to browse any of the other paths.  You should also work with the four different map utilities until you understand how they work.

Oct. 18 (Fri.)

• Reading: Shelley Jackson, Patchwork Girl
• Workshop: Interactive discussion of Patchwork Girl.  Bring laptops to class.

Oct. 20 (Sun.) - Viewing: Atom Egoyan, The Adjuster (1991)
Oct. 21 (Mon.) - Reading: Interactive discussion of Patchwork Girl.  Bring laptops to class.
Oct. 23 (Wed.) - Reading: Jean Baudrillard, "The Ecstasy of Communication" (Reserve Room)
Oct. 25 (Fri.) - Oral report: Preliminary description of hypertext writing project.

Oct. 27 (Sun.) - Viewing: Terry Gilliam, Brazil (1985) - Garland 101 (note changed movie location)
Oct. 28 (Mon.) - Conclude discussion of Patchwork Girl.  Bring laptops to class.

• Reading: George Landow, "Stitching Together Narrative, Sexuality, Self: Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl"
• Reading: Shelley Jackson Forum in HotWired (12 March 1996)
• Browsing: Patchwork Girl Comments Etc.

Oct. 30 (Wed.) - Hypertext Design. 

• Reading: Kathleen Burnett, "Toward a Theory of Hypertextual Design," (paragraphs 13-28)
• Reading: Stuart Moulthrop, "Traveling in the Breakdown Lane A Principle of Resistance for Hypertext"

Nov. 1 (Fri.) - Hypertext workshop (Wilson Hall computer lab)

Nov. 3 (Sun.) - Viewing: Bryan Singer, The Usual Suspects (1995)
Nov. 4 (Mon.) - Reading: Larry McCaffery, "Introduction: The Desert of the Real," in Storming the Reality Studio
Nov. 6 (Wed.) - Reading: Bruce Sterling, The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier - "Preface to the Electronic Release," "Introduction," and "Part 1: Crashing the System"
Nov. 8 (Fri.) - Reading day: Bruce Sterling, The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier "Part 2: The Digital Underground"

Nov. 10 (Sun.) - Viewing: Pulp Fiction
Nov. 11 (Mon.) - Reading: Bruce Sterling, The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier "Part 3: Law and Order"
Nov. 13 (Wed.) - Reading: 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"
Nov. 15 (Fri.) - Hypertext workshop

• Reading: John Caine, "Writing The Story of Carmen & Janet"
• Workshop: Writing hypertext (Wilson Hall computer lab)

Week 13: Stuart Moulthrop--New Frontiers in Web Hypertext Fiction

Nov. 18 (Mon.) - Javanese

• Reading: Stuart Moulthrop, "Hegirascope" .  (Be sure to read "About This Text.")
• Browsing: Stuart Moulthrop's new (11/14/96) Homepage (Java version.  If you do not have Java, download it from Sun.)

Nov. 20 (Wed.) - Hypermedia with Java

• Reading: Stuart Moulthrop and Sean Cohen, "The Color of Television"
• Exercise: Register with media ecology, then click on the "dialogue" button in "The Color of Television" and post a short response to Moulthrop and Cohen's text.

Nov. 22 (Fri.) -

• Reading: Stuart Moultrhop, "Pillars of Wisdom, Pillows of Folly"
• Browse for examples of hypertext design: Stuart Moultrhop, "The Shadow of an Informand: An Experiment in Hypertext Rhetoric"; Nancy Kaplan, "E-Literacies: Politexts, Hypertexts, and Other Cultural Formations in the Late Age of Print"
• Bibliography: Resource page for HTML: John Unsworth's list of manuals from his course, "Theory and Practice of Hypertext" (UVA, fall, 1996).  Resource pages for more examples of hypertext design:  Carol Guyer, "Web Hyperfiction Reading List" (annotated); Tom Goldpaugh, "Hypertext Sites and Essays" (annotated); Michael Shumate, "Hyperizons: Hypertext Fiction" (annotated in places).  
• Workshop: Writing hypertext (Wilson Hall computer lab)

Thanksgiving Vacation (November 23 - December 1)

Week 14: Living in an Information Order

Dec. 2 (Mon.) - Reading: Richard Powers, Galatea 2.2
Dec. 4 (Wed.) - Workshop (Wilson Hall computer lab)
Dec. 6. (Fri.) - Workshop (Wilson Hall computer lab)

Week 14 (cont.): Conclusion

Dec. 9 (Mon.) - Workshop:  Resource page and draft of hypertext project due.  (Wilson Hall computer lab)

Final due dates of course materials

Dec. 13 (Fri.) - Comments on class hypertexts due.  Post comments on the class newsgroup.
Dec. 19 (Thurs.) - Final version of hypertext project due.

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last modified 12/10/96