Week One: Interactivity, Agency, and Change

Theoretical Perspectives on Interactivity

H79.2440 (Douglas Rushkoff)

The emergence of interactive technologies has profoundly altered our relationship to media and art from the position of passive spectators to that of active players. For longer than we might imagine, cultural theorists have foreseen these shifts, feared them, fought for them, celebrated them, and, clearly, misunderstood them. In this seminar, we will explore the thread of interactivity in cultural media as well as the opportunities and perils posed by the associated rise of mass interpretation, authorship, and bottom-up organization. We will trace the interactive imperative, from animated cave paintings and the alphabet to cut-and-paste novels and open source programming. We will encounter literary perspectives from Walter Benjamin to William Burroughs, media theory from Walter Ong to Baudrillard, social critique from Spinoza to Adorno, cultural programming from Genesis P-Orridge to Donna Harraway, and play theory from Huizinga to Howard Rheingold, all in the context of the relationship of interactivity to autonomy and agency. We will also cover the ideas and intentions of some of networking technology's pioneers, from Vannevar Bush to Norbert Weiner.

Students will be required to read approximately one book per week, lead one class discussion, supplement one class discussion with audio-visual resources, and write two short papers arguing a cogent theoretical perspective on new media. The reading list for this course will be found at: http://www.rushkoff.com/theory2005.html

Week One: Interactivity, Agency, and Change

Introduction to Course.

Week Two: Dawn of Interactivity

Packer, Randall and Ken Jordan. Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality. New York: Norton, 2001. ISBN: 0393049795

Chapters:

Foreward

Overture

Weiner

Licklider

Vannevar Bush

Englebart and interview at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.01/mouse.html

Week Three: Applications

Packer, Randall and Ken Jordan. Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality. New York: Norton, 2001. ISBN: 0393049795

Chapters:

Nelson

Berners-Lee

Canter

Viola

Curtis

Week Four: Hot and Cool

McLuhan, Marshall. The Essential McLuhan. Eric McLuhan and Frank Zingrone, eds. New York: Basic Books, 1995. ISBN: 0465019951 (Focus on chapters 8, 9 10, and 13).

Week Five: Transition to Literacy

Ong, Walter. Orality and Literacy. New York: Routledge, 2002. ISBN: 0415281296

Week Six: Media, Technology, and Power

Walter Benjamin: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Available online at:

http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm

Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer (1944): The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception -

Available online at: http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/adorno.htm

Week Seven: Readers and Receptions

Intro to Reader Response Theory at

http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/hopkins_guide_to_literary_theory/reader-response_theory_and_criticism.html

Intro to Reception Theory at

http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/hopkins_guide_to_literary_theory/reception_theory.html

Stanley Fish: Literature and the Reader (Handout)

Roland Barthes: Myth Today (Handout - from "Mythologies")

WRITE 800-word papers. The assignment is to make any argument about media or new media, in about 800 words. See standard OpEd formats in any of Rushkoff's columns at the end of Cyberia, or on http://www.rushkoff.com

MARCH 9 CLASS CANCELED. PAPERS DUE - Post on WIKI site.
March 16 - Spring Break

Week Eight: In-class Discussion of papers - Tuesday, March 22.

Week Nine: Play AND Panic (Wednesday, March 23)

Huizinga: Introduction to Homo Ludens. (Handout) [Marta/Sonali]

Baudrillard. Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation. Translatedby : Sheila Faria Glaser. (please try to use this edition) Read Precession of Simulacra and at least 2 other pieces of your choice. [Hsiao Ho/Nurit]

Week Ten: Cut and Paste

RE/Search #4/5: W.S. Burroughs [Matty/Grace], Brion Gysin David Y/Richard],

Week Eleven: Plastic Identity

Throbbing Gristle. in RE/Search 4/5 [Luna/Anees]

Donna Harraway Cyborg Manifesto/span> [Didi/Marta]

Week Twelve: Designer Reality

Rushkoff, Douglas. Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Cyberspace. Clinamen Press Ltd., April 2002. ISBN: 1903083249 [Richard/David M]

And:

Morrison, Grant. The Invisibles, Vol. 1: Say You Want a Revolution. DC Comics, 1996. ISBN: 1563892677

Rushkoff, Club Zero-G. Disinfo Publishing

[Sonali/Matty]

Week Thirteen: Immersion and Interactivity

Handout From: Ryan, Marie-Laure, Wendy Steiner and Gerald Prince Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media. Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, November 2003. ISBN: 0801877539 [Valerie/Peter]

Handout: Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. "Rhizome," in A Thousand Plateaus. [Anees/Maria] also available at http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed253a/kellner/deleuze.html

PDF of Rushkoff, Open Source Democracy: http://www.rushkoff.com/downloads/opensourcedemocracy.pdf
[David M/Hsiao Ho]

Week Fourteen: Final Discussions

Turn in and "present" final papers. 15 minute discussion each. Final paper format and criteria will be discussed in class after the midterm papers are read an evaluated.

Required Reading (buy or borrow these books):

Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation. Translated: Sheila Faria Glaser.

Packer, Randall and Ken Jordan. Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality. New York: Norton, 2001. ISBN: 0393049795

McLuhan, Marshall. The Essential McLuhan. Eric McLuhan and Frank Zingrone, eds. New York: Basic Books, 1995. ISBN: 0465019951

Ong, Walter. Orality and Literacy. New York: Routledge, 2002. ISBN: 0415281296 (Selections)

RE/Search #4/5: W.S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Throbbing Gristle. ISBN: 0965046915

Rushkoff, Douglas. Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Cyberspace. Clinamen Press Ltd., April 2002. ISBN: 1903083249

Morrison, Grant. The Invisibles, Vol. 1: Say You Want a Revolution. DC Comics, 1996. ISBN: 1563892677

Rushkoff, Douglas. Club Zero-G. Disinfo, 2004.

Ryan, Marie-Laure, Wendy Steiner and Gerald Prince Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media. Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, November 2003. ISBN: 0801877539

Recommended Reading:

Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens : A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Boston: Beacon Press, 1971. ISBN: 0807046817

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media - The Critical Edition.

ISBN 1584230738

Rheingold, Howard. Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. ISBN: 0738208612

Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. New York: Noonday Press, 1973. ISBN: 0374521506

Foucault, Michel. The Foucault Reader. Paul Ranibow, ed. Random House Trade Paperbacks, 1984. ISBN: 0394713400

Horkheimer, Max, Theodore Adorno and Gunzelin Schmid Noerr. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Stanford Univ. Press, 2002. ISBN: 0804736332

de la Saussure, Ferdinand. Course in General Linguistics. Chicago: Open Court Publishing Co., 1988. ISBN: 0812690230

Spinoza, Benedict De. A Spinoza Reader. E. M. Curley, ed. Princeton Univ. Press, February, 1994. ISBN: 0691000670

Anarchy For The Masses (the Invisibles)

ISBN: 7895034

Himanen, Pekka. The Hacker Ethic. 0375505660

Book of Lies, Disinformation. ISBN: 7998725

In the Beginning was the Command Line

Neal Stephenson. ISBN: 0380815931

Leary, Timothy. Chaos and Cyberculture. ISBN: 0914171771 (used only)

Laurel, Brenda. Computers as Theatre. ISBN: 0201550601

Strate, Jacobson, and Gibson, editors. Communication and Cyberspace, second edition. ISBN: 1572733934.

Futureritual. Publication Date: September 1995 ISBN: 1573531073

Painful but Fabulous: The Life and Art of Genesis P-Orridge, Publication Date: May 2002, ISBN: 1887128883

Electronic Revolution, Publication Date: December 1998, ISBN: 388030002X

Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation. UMP; (February 15, 1995) ISBN: 0472065211

Back in No Time : The Brion Gysin Reader, Publication Date: January 2002, ISBN: 0819565296

Raymond, Eric S. The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary. ISBN: 0596001088

Rushkoff, Douglas, Open Source Democracy. Demos: UK Open Source Publisher. http://www.demos.co.uk

Rushkoff, Douglas. Media Virus: Hidden Agendas in Popular Culture. ISBN: 0345397746

Rushkoff, Douglas. Coercion: Why We Listen to What "They" Say. ISBN: 157322829X