CCC

CMST 242--Communication, Culture, Consciousness

Instructor: John M. Sloop, Dept. of Communication Studies
Office: CL213H
Classroom: 109 Calhoun
Class: 12:10-1:00 MWF
Office Hours: 11-12 MWF, 1-3 Tuesday
Office Phone: 322-2988
Home Phone: 662-6979 (8AM until 9PM)
Fax: 343-7918
email: john.m.sloop@vanderbilt.edu

Take shortcuts to the following:

Course Overview
Required Texts
Assignments and Grading
Course Structure
Course Schedule

Overview:

"When I look at the television, I want to see me staring right back at me"--Counting Crows

"It's Jesus, like in the movies"--Christopher Sloop, age 4, when asked to identify the baby Jesus

"I'm OK with the still pictures, but the moving ones are alive"--Nicole Simpson's mother, discussing images of Nicole.

"The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people's reality, and eventually in one's own"--Susan Sontag

"Every new medium is a machine for the production of ghosts"--John Durham Peters

In this course, we reflect on the relationship between the primary means of communication within a culture and the consciousness of that culture and its members. We will read a number of different works ranging from those claiming to trace out the historical relationship between media and culture, those that attempt to speculate on contemporary shifts in consciousness, those that celebrate "postmodernity," those that condemn it. Our goal is not so much to learn ways of "reading" and critiquing specific texts (e.g., television shows, film) as some of you may have experienced in "Rhetoric of Mass Media"--although we will act as critics at times--but is instead an attempt to understand cultural epistemology and individual ontology as somewhat shaped, or influenced, by dominant modes of communication. During the semester, we will investigate film, television, and the Internet as sites of criticism/theory and will comment on the so-called "postmodern condition" and its implications.

Required Texts:

DeLillo, Don. White Noise. New York: Penguin, 1984.

Gibson, William. Neuromancer. New York: Ace Science Fiction, 1984.

Sontag, Susan. On Photography. New York: Anchor, 1977.

Sunstein, Cass. Republic.com Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002.

Swiss, Thomas, ed. Unspun: Key Concepts for Understanding the World Wide Web. New York: NYU Press, 2000.

There will also be reserved readings on electronic reseerve and some taken off the web.

Assignments and Grading:

Course Structure:

Unit One: Media and Culture: A Primer. Readings: Ong, McLuhan. In this brief unit, we will establish the classic media theory understanding of the relationship between the consciousness of a culture and its dominant mode of communication (i.e., "the medium is the message").
Unit Two: Photography, Image Reproduction, and Cultural Surrender: The Erosion of Modernity. Readings: Sontag, Horkheimer and Adorno, Benjamin. Viewing: Being There. In this unit, we will begin our discussion of the influence of "mechanical reproduction" on cultural knowledge. While each of the authors we will read or discuss emerges from a different theoretical tradition, each sees image reproduction as a move that pushes toward the end of authenticity (and reason), and hence, the erosion of the modern vision. However, these readings also include various strategies to resist this erosion, to provide a politics of resistance.
Unit Three: Access Through Excess: Postmodernity in Baudrillard's America. Readings: Baudrillard, DeLillo. Viewings: Natural Born Killers. In this unit, we will discuss contemporary theories of the postmodern condition, a condition said to have been "brought on" by changes in our uses of media, as well as by our cultural self-perception. We will discuss various strategies that have been developed for dealing with a world of images and surfaces and will argue over different suggestions made by theorists of post modernism and beyond.
Unit Four: Cyborgs, Cyberspace, and Fluidity. Readings: Gibson, Haraway, the essays from Unspun. Viewings: The Matrix, Blade Runner, A.I., Star Trek's Q Who?, Star Trek: First Contact. Here, we will attempt to understand the impact of cyborg technology and cyberspace (Internet, email, virtual realities, cosmetic surgeries, prosthetics) on cultural consciousness. Our discussion should lead us from heavily theorized to scarcely theorized areas. As a result, this unit will be one in which the class will be encouraged to develop its own theoretical apparatus and its own projections for what future media might bring to our culture (and to "us"). I expect you, through your own "play" with the web and other media, to have something to say during this unit about how you see our culture changing.
Unit Five: What is to be done? Readings: Sunstein, a few essays from Unspun. In this unit, we will attempt to discuss/think through what it means to have a community or working democracy in the age of digital communication. The readings should help us think through ways in which we might rethink the democratic project.
Unit Six: Projective Essays. In the final unit of the course, as fitting a seminar, each of you will present an essay in which you will attempt to make a theoretical statement about the impact of new "extensions" on our condition as humans.

Course Schedule (Tentative, of course)

Aug 28--Introduction to course (handout--DeLillo)
Aug 30--Meet in Computer classroom 119 D Garland (Assign Short Paper)
Sep 02--McLuhan "Medium," Ong "Some" (electronic reserve)
Sep 04--McLuhan, Ong continued. Short Paper Due.
Sep 06--Sontag, pp. 3-24.
Sep 09--Sontag, pp. 85-112.
Sep 11--Sontag, pp. 153-181. (Assign Critical Essay).
Sep 13--Benjamin (Read through link).
Sep 16--Horkheimer and Adorno (Read through link).
Sep 18--Discussion of Being There.
Sep 20--Lecture on Baudrillard and negotiating the posts
Sep 23--Discuss Baudrillards "Clone Story," "Advertising," and "On Nihilism" (electronic reserve)
Sep 25--DeLillo, pp. 1-53.
Sep 27--DeLillo, pp. 54-105.
Sep 30--DeLillo, pp. 109-182.
Oct 02--DeLillo, pp. 184-256.
Oct 04--DeLillo, pp. 257-320.
Oct 07--Natural Born Killers discussion. (Draft of Critical Essay due).
Oct 09--Gibson, pp. 3-69.
Oct 11--Gibson, pp. 71-121.
Oct 14--Critical Essay due. Discussion of essays.
Oct 16--Gibson, pp. 123-199.
Oct 18--Gibson, pp. 201-271.
Oct 23--Haraway lecture.
Oct 25--Haraway ("Manifesto"), Haraway interview (on-line).
Oct 28--Unspun, Intro, Chapters 5,6.
Oct 30--Unspun, Chapters 3,4,9.
Nov 01--A.I. discussion. (Projective Essay assigned). EXAM QUESTIONS POSTED.
Nov 04--Star Trek "Q Who?" viewing and discussion.
Nov 06--Internet nationalism. Read Fursich and Robins (electronic reserve)
Nov 08--EXAM.
Nov 11--Sunstein, Chaps. 1-2.
Nov 13--Sunstein, Chaps. 3-4.
Nov 15--Sunstein, Chaps. 5-6.
Nov 18--Sunstein, Chaps. 7-9.
Nov 20--Open
Nov 22--Unspun, Chaps 1 and 12.
Dec 02--Cassidy (electronic reserve).
Dec 04--Open.
Dec 06--Projective paper presentation. (Projective papers due).
Dec 09--Projective paper presentation.
Dec 11--Projective paper presentation.

YOU MUST ATTEND ONE OF THE FINAL TWO EXAM SESSIONS. We will use the normal and alternative exam sessions for final paper presentations. As such, you are required to attend one of the two meetings. Schedule your departure times accordingly, as I will accept no excuses. Missing the exam session will result in the loss of one full letter grade off your final grade. Missing half of the exam period (i.e., "leaving early") will result in the loss of half a full letter grade off your final grade. Again, there will be no "excused" absences for any reason, and you must attend the full exam period (e.g., you cannot ask if you can leave 15 minutes early to catch your flight or to attend another exam).

As now scheduled (but you are responsible for verifying this), our exam times are as follows:

Tue, Dec. 17---12-2 PM.
Sat, Dec. 21--9-11AM.

If you have questions or need to talk to me, call me at 322-2988, come by my office (213 Calhoun), or email me.

If you would like to see my other courses, you will find links on my homepage.