Course Documents: https://ublearns.buffalo.edu/
Aug 28: Introduction to Multimedia Literature.
Aug 30: Computers and Cognition. Sherry Turkle, “How Computers Have Changed the Way We Think.” UBLearns.
Sep 1: Computers and Cognition.
Sep 4: Labor Day: No Class
Sep 6: Cyberpunk globalization. William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition.
Sep 8: Gibson’s Pattern Recognition.
Sep 11: Gibson’s Pattern Recognition.
Sep 13: Gibson’s Pattern Recognition.
Sep 15: Gibson’s Pattern Recognition.
Sep 18: Paranoia and intellectual property. Thomas Pynchon, “Is It O.K. to Be a Luddite?” UBLearns.
Sep 20: Simulation. Jean Baudrillard, “The Precession of Simulacra.” UBLearns.
Sep 22: Rosh Hashanah: No Class
Sep 25: Information overload and postmodern simulacra. Don DeLillo’s White Noise.
Sep 27: DeLillo’s White Noise.
Sep 29: DeLillo’s White Noise.
Oct 2: Yom Kippur: No Class
Oct 4: DeLillo’s White Noise.
First essay due in class, 5-7 pages.
Oct 6: DeLillo’s White Noise.
Oct 9: Michael Joyce, “Twelve Blue.” http://www.eastgate.com/TwelveBlue/Twelve_Blue.html
Oct 11: Virtuality and men in small rooms. Richard Powers’s Plowing the Dark.
Oct 13: Powers’s Plowing the Dark.
Oct 16: Powers’s Plowing the Dark.
Oct 18: Powers’s Plowing the Dark.
Oct 20: Powers’s Plowing the Dark.
Oct 23: Jane Yellowlees Douglas, from The End of Books? Or Books Without End? Reading Hypertext Narratives. UB Learns.
Oct 25: Douglas, from The End of Books?
Oct 27: Douglas, “What Hypertexts Do that Print Narratives Cannot.” UBLearns.
Oct 30: You Will Be Assimilated. Donna Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto.” UBLearns.
Nov 1: Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto.”
Nov 3: Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto.”
Nov 6: The avatar and the protagonist. Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash.
Second essay due in class, 5-7 pages.
Nov 8: Stephenson’s Snow Crash.
Nov 10: Stephenson’s Snow Crash.
Nov 13: Stephenson’s Snow Crash.
Nov 15: Stephenson’s Snow Crash.
Nov 17: Metafiction and Postmodern Parody. John Barth’s “Click.” UBLearns.
Nov 20: Barth’s “Click.”
Nov 22: Thanksgiving Recess
Nov 24: Thanksgiving Recess
Nov 27: In the belly of the beast. Douglas Coupland’s Microserfs.
Nov 29: Coupland’s Microserfs.
Dec 1: Coupland’s Microserfs.
Dec 4: Coupland’s Microserfs.
Final research paper or digital project due in class.
Dec 6: Coupland’s Microserfs.
Dec 8: Conclusions.
Required Texts:
Coupland, Douglas. Microserfs. New York: Regan Books, 1996.
DeLillo, Don. White Noise. New York: Penguin, 1986.
Gibson, William. Pattern Recognition. New York: Putnam’s, 2003.
Stephenson, Neal. Snow Crash. New York: Bantam, 1992.
Powers, Richard. Plowing the Dark. New York: Picador, 2000.
All texts for the course can be found at Talking Leaves Bookstore, 3158 Main Street, Buffalo, NY 14214; (716) 837-8554.
Course Requirements:
Attendance in class and participation in discussion for English 370 is mandatory; two 5-7 page papers and a final research paper or digital research project.
Papers: Neatly printed copies must be presented in class on the day indicated on the syllabus. These copies should adhere to the following format: a cover page with a title for your essay, your name, the course number and title, the date; typed, double-spaced with one-inch margins; all pages numbered; stapled. The paper should be proofread for grammatical and typographical errors.
Late policy: Late assignments will be accepted only by prior arrangement with me. Failure to seek approval before the due date will result in a penalty of one grade increment per class meeting.
Plagiarism: All secondary materials, either from print or online sources, must be properly attributed. Plagiarism of a paper—either in whole or in part, especially including sources downloaded from the Internet—will result in an immediate failure for the assignment, or the course, at the instructor’s discretion.
Attendance: Noted on a daily basis. Absence from more than five classes during the course of the semester will result in a final grade deduction, up to and including failure for the course, at the instructor’s discretion.
Grading:
50% for the two papers; 40% for the research paper or project; and 10% for
attendance and participation in the class discussion list.
Last revised on Monday, August 28, 2006.
Copyright © 2006 Joseph M. Conte. All
Rights Reserved.