Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Digital Literacy: From Print Culture to Social Networking
Katherine D. Harris
Note on the Classroom & Meeting Time
This course would be best taught as a 3‐hour, once per week meeting. The Incubator Classroom is
an optimal teaching space where students will each have a PC or Mac laptop during class time,
unfettered wireless Internet and SJSU server access as well as video conferencing and recording
capabilities. (The IC is available for the Fall if this course is approved.)
Course Description
With the evolution of print technology in the early nineteenth century, authors, reviewers and
publishers began descrying the ease with which someone could call himself or herself an “author.”
However, the evolution of language, the dissemination of print materials, the creation of a larger
community has always been part of the human condition. Now, we call it social networking, an
atmosphere in which readers become users as well as authors and a time when we can respond to
each other virtually but in real time. So, what does this mean for Literature and the literary? In this
course, we will explore the impact of Web 2.0 on our literary culture by tapping into our existing
digital literacy and digital literature. We will explore, intellectualize and critically examine the
content creation in these social spaces – even the creation of fiction and poetry as digitally‐
enhanced, multiple authored texts, some of them adaptations of 19th Century texts. After all, didn’t
Dickens do this when he altered the conclusion of Great Expectations three times to suit his fans?
Reading Materials
All readings (even the Readers) are available online thanks to the generosity of the authors and
publishers.
Required
Email Account & Unfailing Access to the Internet
Twitter, Facebook, Flickr & YouTube Accounts
Guest Lecturers*
Prof. Carolyn Guertin, Director e‐Create Lab, University of Texas, Arlington
Prof. Matthew Jockers, Humanities Computing & Irish Studies, Stanford University
Prof. David Silver, Media Studies, University of San Francisco & Director, Resource Center for
Cyberculture Studies
Prof. Laura Mandell, Miami University, Ohio & Assoc. Director, NINES (Nineteenth‐Century Studies
Online)
Prof. Matt K. Gold, English, New York City College of Technology & Graduate Center, CUNY
Prof. Jamie Skye Bianco, English, University of Pittsburgh
*Note: All guest lecturers have already confirmed willingness to appear either by video
conferencing or in person.
Harris: Digital Literacy Proposal 2
Potential Assignments:
• Weekly Reading Responses (Blog): For each day’s readings post a response to your blog. I
will read these postings and post my own reactions or questions when appropriate. In
addition, in‐class blog entries will be assigned when an interesting subject arises out of our
discussions. (By mid‐semester, we may move this to Tweets or micro‐blogging to
experiment with the efficacy of Twitter and the brevity of language.)
• Exploring Current Scholarship: With the advent of YouTube and mp3 files, we can now
listen to scholars and experts from far and wide. For this assignment, choose one of the
podcasts or videos from the selection (Digital Campus at George Mason U, HASTAC at UCLA
or MITH at U of Maryland). Watch it; report back to the entire class about the ideas
represented.
• Assessment of Micro‐Blogging: Many of the Digital Humanities scholars are following each
other on Twitter, a micro‐blogging platform that allows users to type only 140 characters to
convey an idea. Many of the Digerati blast the community with ideas and receive real‐time
responses (as opposed to email, blogging, wikis or print scholarly apparatus). Sign up for
Twitter and follow some of the Digerati in my Twitter list (already established). You might
find that you’d like to expand your followings or that you’ll acquire some Digerati followers.
Think about some of these questions as you follow along: Is Twitter a valid scholarly
apparatus? Does it extend the conversations beyond the university walls? Is it
“professional”? Is it literary? Can Whitman’s Song of Myself or Shakespeare’s Sonnets be
tweeted in 140 characters? Keep track of the daily conversations and report back to us on
the due date. Submit a 1200‐word evaluation of the Tweets.
• Adapting Literature to Role‐Playing (Video) Games: The visual and the literary have already
been linked with the creation of 15th‐Century emblems (e.g. Emblematum Liber). In the 20th
Century, graphic novels (e.g., Maus) have furthered this relationship between images and
text in postmodern‐style fractured plots (e.g., anything Neil Gaiman!). With this assignment,
we will wed the literary to the visual with one further step – creating and assessing the
user‐created narrative of role‐playing (video) games. You have all read an inordinate
amount of literary texts, both canonical and non‐canonical. This is your moment to work
with your favorite text and turn it into a role‐playing game. You must be able to articulate
your text’s genre rules and adapt it to the visual world of video games. This means that you
need to intricately understand your text’s internal rules. You may have to unearth the
cultural resonance of that text as well – be prepared for some literary sleuthing. For this
assignment, you will create a written description of your role‐playing game in 1200 words.
Be prepared to present.
• Visualizing your Video Game: Now that you’ve thought about your literary role‐playing
game, let’s add some visual aspects. Turn your written description into a simulated video
game on either Flickr (still images) or YouTube (videos). On the due date a 1000‐word
rationale is also due. [Note: This assignment will be developed further.]
Harris: Digital Literacy Proposal 3
Readings & Assignments Schedule
Date Topic Readings Assignments Due
1 Introduction to Digital Introduction to Class’ Social Networks: Sticky Assignment: What do
Humanities & Imagined Set up blogs you Use (posted to Flickr) (in‐
(Social) Communities Twitter (follow some Digerati Scholars) class)
Facebook Group
Flickr & YouTube
Incubator Classroom equipment
Defining Digital Humanities:
Medieval Help Desk (moving from scroll to codex)
(video)
Interview with Brett Bobley, Director, NEH Office of
Digital Humanities
What is Web 2.0? (video)
Web 2.0: The Machine is Us/ing Us (Video)
Hyper‐Attention 101 & 102, Howard Rheingold
(video)
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities
(excerpt)
Guest Lecturer
Prof. Laura Mandell (video conferencing)
2 Print Culture & Technologies of Writing Presentations: Exploring
Materiality of the Text Matthew Kirschenbaum, Blog Entry, Technologies Current Scholarship (podcast
of Writing Seminar, Folger Institute & video reports)
(Visit SJSU Special Eric Faden, “A Fair(y) Use Tale [on Copyright
Collections) Principles]” (video)
Morris Freedman, “Why I Don’t Read Books
Anymore,” Virginia Quarterly Review
Jorge Luis Borges, “Library of Babel” & “The Garden
of Forking Paths”
Cory Doctorow, “Writing in the Age of Distraction,”
Locus Magazine
3 The History of Print Umberto Eco, In the Name of the Rose (novel)
Culture or
Or Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves (novel)
Incorporating
Aberrations into
Narrative and Print
Culture
4 (2nd day on novel) Presentations: Exploring
Current Scholarship (podcast
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations Serials & Three & video reports)
Endings
5 Man, Machine & Jerome McGann, “The Rationale of Hypertext” Presentations: Exploring
Intelligence Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media Current Scholarship
(excerpts) (podcast & video reports)
‐‐, “New Media from Borges to HTML,” New
Media Reader
Clifford Lynch, “The Battle to Define the
Future of the Book in the Digital World,” First
Monday
Matt Kirschenbaum, “Where Computer
Science and Cultural Studies Collide,” The
Harris: Digital Literacy Proposal 4
Chronicle Review
Carolyn Guertin, “Handholding, Remixing and
the Instant Replay: New Narratives in a
PostNarrative World,” A Companion to Digital
Literary Studies
First Literary New Media Poem?
William Gibson, Agrippa (A Book of the Dead)
The Poem Running in Emulation: the poem &
its single‐use software (recovered in
December 2008)
Guest Lecturer
Prof. Carolyn Guertin (video conferencing)
6 Using the Tools to Scott McLemee, “Literature to Infinity,” Inside Presentations: Exploring
Take Us Farther: Higher Ed Current Scholarship
Text Analysis Stephen Ramsay, “Algorithmic Criticism,” A (podcast & video reports)
Companion to Digital Literary Studies
David Hoover, “Quantitative Analysis and
Literary Studies,” A Companion to Digital
Literary Studies
Tools
Collex, Juxta, TaPor
Guest Lecturer
Prof. Matt Jockers (in‐person)
7 Literary Archives & Robert Darnton, “Google and the Future of Presentations: Exploring
E‐Books: Revising Books,” New York Review of Books Current Scholarship
Literature for the Johanna Drucker, “The Virtual Codex from (podcast & video reports)
Digital World Page Space to E‐Space,” A Companion to
Digital Literary Studies
“Digitizing the Gutenberg Bible,” NPR
(podcast)
Bertrand Gervais, “Is There a Text on this
Screen?” A Companion to Digital Literary
Studies
Ken Price, “Electronic Scholarly Editions,” A
Companion to Digital Literary Studies
John A. Walsh, “Multimedia & Multi‐Tasking: A
Survey of Digital Resources for Nineteenth‐
Century Literary Studies,” A Companion to
Digital Literary Studies
Archives
American Women’s Dime Novel Project
Poetess Archive & Forget Me Not Archive
Internet Library of Early Journals
Whitman Archive
The Book Cover Archive
Internet Archive Wayback Machine
Harris: Digital Literacy Proposal 5
8 Video Games as Steven E. Jones, The Meaning of Video Games: Presentations: Exploring
Literature? Gaming & Textual Strategies (excerpts) Current Scholarship
Matt Kirschenbaum, Zone of Influence: A Game (podcast & video reports)
Studies Blog (excerpt)
Ian Bogost, The Expressive Power of Video
Games (excerpts)
McKenzie Wark, Gamer Theory on If:Book
SpaceWar, 1st video game, New Media Reader
CD Rom
Guest Lecturer
TBD (perhaps someone from SJSU Computer
Science Dept or Art & Design?)
9 Presentations Presentations: Exploring
Current Scholarship
(podcast & video reports)
Adapting Literature to Role‐
Playing (Video) Games –
Presentations & Essays due
10 Born Digital Born Magazine of Art & Literature
Literature Jason Nelson, Game, Game, Game and Again
Game
Choose (digital novel)
Nick Montfort, Ad Verbum (game)
List of Born Digital Literary
“texts(?)”Presentations: Exploring Current
Scholarship (podcast & video reports)
Vol. I, Electronic Literature Collection
(primarily digital poetry)
Simon Faithful, Adelaide (digital novel)
Façade: A OneAct Interactive Drama
Grotesque, A Gothic Epic
Selections from New Media Reader CD‐Rom of
born digital literature
Vectors: Journal of Culture & Technology in a
Dynamic Vernacular (pick an article)
Eastgate Publishers of Hypertexts (review
their site)
11 Presentations Visualizing Your Video
Game Assignment –
Presentations & Visual
Essays due
12 Social Networking is Wikipedia Presentations: Exploring
Literary? Delicious (bookmarking) Current Scholarship
Alan Liu, “Developing a Wikipedia Research (podcast & video reports)
Policy”
Noam Cohen, “Wikipedia May Restrict Public’s
Ability to Change Entries,” New York Times
Harris: Digital Literacy Proposal 6
Twittering the Inauguration, Scholar’s Lab,
UVA
Guest Lecturer
Prof. David Silver (in person)
13 Blogging & Jeremy Douglass, Writer Response Theory Presentations: Exploring
FaceBooking as (excerpts) Current Scholarship
Social Commentary John Timmer, “Professor Tweets about (podcast & video reports)
or Literature? Course, Ends Up Moving Whole Class Online,”
Ars Poetica
Bernardo A. Huberman, et al, “Social Networks
that Matter: Twitter Under the Microscope,”
First Monday
“Change Has Come to the WhiteHouse.gov”
Clive Thompson, “I’m So Digitally Close to You:
Brave New World of Digital Intimacy,” New
York Times
Aimee Morrison, “Blogs and Blogging: Text
and Practice,”A Companion to Digital Literary
Studies
“Is Academic Blogging an Oxymoron?” a public
conversation between faculty bloggers and
student bloggers in Humanities at UC Irvine
(video)
Guest Lecturers
Profs. Matt K. Gold & Jamie Skye Bianco (video
conference)
14 Presentations Charlotte Smith, Elegiac Sonnets (sonnet Presentations: Exploring
sequence for comparison to micro‐blogging) Current Scholarship
(podcast & video reports)
Assessment of Micro‐
Blogging Essay due
15 Wrap‐Up, Decisions, What about Second Life? Presentations: Exploring
Revisions, Re‐Mixing, What is the future of the Humanities and its Current Scholarship
Mashups scholarship? (podcast & video reports)
Are you a Digital Native?
Are you a Digital Author?