Class Syllabus

Class I:   September 1, 1999 

Readings:
-de Zengotita, Thomas, "The Gunfire Dialogues: Notes on the Reality of Virtuality," 1999
-de Zengotita, Thomas, "Whatever: An Anthropologist's View of How the Age of Celebrity and the Culture of Irony are Shaping Political Attitudes" 1997

Web Resources:
- Voice of Shuttle: Technology Resource Page
-The Technology Page: site seperated into numerous technology & blank sections of web links

Film Resources:
-Ed TV
-Matrix
-Pleasantville
-Real Action Hero
-Truman Show

CD ROM Resources:
-Louis Foresdale & Marshall McLuhan (CD ROM)

Topic I: Something Happened! The Fifth Century B.C.

Commentators from many different domains have focused, albeit for different reasons, on the Fifth Century B.C. as a period of radical cultural change. Nietzche saw it as the time when the Greeks lost their nerve and created metaphysics, escapist fantasies for those who could not live with the contradictions of tragedy. Historians of education, such as H.I. Marrou, saw it, as the moment when the Western approach to education took its defining shape ­ schools of rhetoric and philosophy. Weston LaBarre, the anthropologist, in his book on the origins of religion compares the penchant for other worldly philosophy of the late Fifth Century to the Hope Ghost dance.

In this section of our "course" we will focus on the Fifth Century as the First Century in Western history when the alphabet took root as a medium and as in the thought of some, such as Havelock, McLuhan and Ong became a precondition for many of the transformations the others have observed. As we pursue this discussion we will keep an eye to the present with the goal of understanding both the influence those early moments still have from within us today as well as those ways in which our own moment differs and perhaps even reverses what has been a long standing legacy.

Class II:   September 8, 1999 

Readings:
-Homer, Iliad, Book 1 (Handout)
-Heraclitus, Fragmenta (Handout)
-Plato, Republic, Book VII: 'Allegory of the Cave' (Handout)
-Plato, Ion (Handout)

Web Resources:
-Book VII Republic (MIT)  (Perseus)
-Homer, The Iliad (MIT) (Perseus)
-Plato, Apology (MIT) (Perseus)
-Plato, Crito (MIT) (Perseus)
-Plato, The Iliad (MIT) (Perseus)
-Plato, Ion (MIT)  (Perseus)

Image Resources:
-Vase 1
-Vase 2
-Vase 3
-Vase 4
-Vase 5

Class III:   September 15, 1998 

Readings:
-Aeschylus, Libation-Bearers (MIT) (Perseus)
-Sophocles, Electra (MIT) (Perseus) (University of Chicago Editions)

Class IV:   September 22, 1998 

Readings:
-Euripedes, Electra (MIT) (Perseus)
-Euripedes, Orestes (MIT) (Perseus) (University of Chicago Press)

Class V:   September 29, 1999 

Readings:
-Plato, Cratylus

Web Resources:
-Cratylus (MIT)

Topic II: Technology and Change: Printing, Electricity and the Telegraph

Web Resources:
- The Media History Project
- Affordances and Constraints of the Internet for Learning and Instruction : essay recaps the history of media
- Media Determinism in Cyberspace:
hypertext (include. Brief history of technology; early techno-philosophers, etc)

Class VI:   October 6, 1999 -- Printing and Education

Readings:
-Cole, Richard, Johann Heinrich Alsted, "A Neglected Educator" - (Columbia) ­ Doctoral Dissertation Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism,Chapter 2, pages 9-36 "Cultural Roots", Chapter 3, pages 37-46, "Origins of National Consciousness"

Web Resources:
- Guild Hall: educational recreation of an 'apprentice' to Gutenberg
- The Melbert B. Cary, Jr. Graphic Arts Collection: a library on printing history located at the Rochester Institute of Technology: site offers pictures of famous printers and their works along with information on the papermaking andprinting process
- Jones Telecommunications & Multimedia Encyclopedia: Entry for the History & Development of printing
- Letterpress Printing:
descriptions of Letterpress printing, the printing press; Includes glossary
- OED

Class VII:   October 13, 1999 -- Electricity: Technology as Culture I

Readings:
-Nye, David, Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, Preface, pages ix-xi, Chapter 1, pages 1-28
-"Middletown Lights Up", Conclusion, pages 381-391.

Web Resources:
- American Technological Sublime: etext by Nye
- EPRI: Electric Technology Roadmap Initiative: (looks intense, right on topic): (the EPRI homesite www.epri.com might also be applicable)
- Electricity Forum homepage: gateway to N.A.'s electrical industry
- International Energy Agency
- Utility Guide: Information Network for Electricity Users
- Shifting Boundaries and Social Construction in the Early Electricity Industry, 1878-1915: scholarly essay
- ConEd
- Lilco
-OED

Class VIII:   October 20, 1999 -- Telegraph: Technology as Culture II

Readings:
-Carey, Jim, Communication as Culture
-"Technology and Ideology: The Case of the Telegraph" (Handout)

Web Resources:
- Telegraph Lore: sections on technology, tales, tools. Patents, etc, etc:
- Marconi Centenary: describing the process leading up to the first wireless telegraph company
- Modern Practice of the Electronic Telegraph: ebook
- Henry James and Telegraphic Realism:
-AT&T
- Henry James: In the Cage: etext
-OED

Class IX:   October 27, 1999 -- Digital Technologies: Technology as Culture III

Readings:
-Zuboff, Shoshana,In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power,
-"Dilemmas of Transformation in the Age of the Smart Machine, pages 3-16, and
-"Managing the Informed Society", pages 387-414.

Web Resources:
- One Digital Day: During one 24-hour period, 100 of the world's top photojournalists traveled to the far corners of the globe to document the impact of the microchip on modern life: explore this book online
- The Atlantic: Technology & Digital Culture
- Wired Magazine
- Harmonic Convergence: Multimedia timeline into the future
-OED
-CNN Online
-Brill¹s Content: Independent voice of the info age

Topic III: The New Age: Digital Technologies, Mass Media, the Emergence of Global Culture and their Psychological, Cultural and Political Implications

Class X & XI:   November 3 & 10, 1999 -- Globalization and Postmodernism

Readings:
-Barber, Benjamin,
-Jihad Vs. McWorld (selections, Handout)
-Finnegan, William, Cold New World: Growing Up in a Harder Country, pages 1-92
-Fredric Jameson, "Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism"
-Ritzer, George, The McDonaldization of Society: An Investigation into the Changing Character of Contemporary Social Life
Michael Jordan and the New Global Capitalism (1999)

Films:
-American History X, clip 1: (high) (medium) (low)

Class XII & XIII:   November 18, 1999 & December 1, 1999 -- Television and Hegemony

Readings:
-Gitlin, Todd, "Television Screens: Hegemony in Transition"
-Understanding McLuhan (CD ROM) 1-888-292-5584

Web Resources:
- McLuhan Program in Culture & Technology: at U Of Toronto
-Fredric Jameson, "Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism"

Class XIV:   December 8, 1999 -- The Internet and Personal Development

Readings:
-Turkle, Sherry, Life on the Screen

Web Resources:
- Netropolitan Life
- Turkle's homepage
- Interview with Turkle
- a page of Turkle links
- Cybersociology Magazine
- The Pscychology of Cyberspace: 'The purpose of this online hypertext book (web site) is to explore the psychological dimensions of environments created by computers and online networks'
- The Nature of Self: starting w/ Freud going through & beyond Turkle
- Hyperbole over Cyberspace: Self-presentation & Social Boundaries in Internet Home Pages and Discourse: essay
- Maxis: SimCity homesite: (maxis.com redirected to this page)
- ELIZA, online psychotherapist
- LambdaMOO
- Mudding: Social Phenomena in Text-Based Virtual Realities: Pavel Curtis: Article w/ URL given in footnote: this is new URL
- this is the directory of all the papers
-IRC: intro to Internet Relay Chat for people using Windows
- a short IRC primer
- Unofficial website: World-of-Dawkins
- Biomorph exercise
- Artificial Life: Santa Fe Institute's Temple of Alife:
w/ several online demos
- SFI¹s general page with a listing of resources accessible through the site: (software, papers, etc)
- Tierra: page with source code, abstract, list of publications about (as of '92)

Films Resources:
-The Matrix

Class XV:   December 15, 1999 -- Our World ( As it is)

Readings:
-Stephenson, Neal, Crypotonomicon

Web Resources:
-Cypher FAQ

Film Resources:
The Matrix