Week 1: Paradigms of Communication Wednesday 1.14
Class
- Discussion: What's a medium? What is the future of reading?
- Claude Shannon's diagram and its variants (powerpoint available here)
Friday 1.16
- Workshop: Using nfomedia (the class wiki software), write a brief bio of yourself. Include your academic interests.
Week 2: The Evolution of Language No class Monday 1.19
Wednesday 1.21
Class
- Documentary: "Let There Be Words: The Origins of Human Language"
Assignments Due Today
- McQuail, Denis. "Four Models of Communication." McQuail's Mass Communication Theory. pp 68-75. (on Blackboard)
Friday 1.23
- Workshop: Construct a timeline of your personal experience with communications media. What is the first medium you remember using? What media have been added to your experience along the way? And what is the most recent addition? And, finally, which media no longer play any role in your life? There are probably some media that still exist, that you may even still use, but that play a smaller part in your life than they used to. Include those as well.
Week 3: Language and Oral Culture Monday 1.26
Class
Assignments Due Today
- Journal Entry: Choose one of the four models of communication from McQuail's Mass Communication Theory or one of the diagrams from the powerpoint presentation. Consider how that model applies to oral culture as described by Ong and McLuhan.
- Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy. excerpts on oral culture
- McLuhan, Marshall. The Gutenberg Galaxy. excerpts on oral culture
Wednesday 1.28
Class
- Problem: Transition from orality to literacy.
Assignments Due Today
- Journal Entry: The nature and shaping effects of a medium: applying what you learned about communication theory to an interesting case. Take notes on Dalrymple's article. Use what you learned about communication theory from McQuail (Mass Communication Theory) to understand what is going on in the communication situation described and analyzed by Dalrymple. Armed with your notes, diagram the situation(s), applying some of the key concepts explained by McQuail.
- Dalrymple, William. "Homer in India." The New Yorker
- Oral Composition: Milman Parry, Albert Lord, and John Miles Foley
Friday 1.30
Assignments Due Today
- Journal Entry: Text-based Timeline.
Week 4: Reading and Writing in the Past Monday 2.2
Class
- Documentary: "Civilization to Colonization: Language Takes Written Form"
Assignments Due Today
- Journal Entry: Respond to Gaur's "A History of Writing."
- Gaur, Albertine. A History of Writing. 13-47, 149-64.
Wednesday 2.4
Class
Assignments Due Today
- Journal Entry: Continue working on your interactive timeline.
Friday 2.6
Week 5: Problems in Writing Monday, 2.9
Class
- In-class work on team projects.
Assignments Due Today
- Instead of a journal entry, you'll be working in teams this week!
Wednesday, 2.11
Class
- Team Presentations: Problems in Writing.
Assignments Due Today
- Email Rachel a copy of the powerpoint, or the link to an interactive timeline, so that your projects can become a resource on the class site.
Friday, 2.13
- Workshop: Paleography session with John Chandler. NOTE: We will be meeting in the Robbins Library.
Assignments Due Today
- Blog Post: Post the link to your interactive timeline to the course blog. Comment on at least two other timelines.
Week 6: The Gutenberg Galaxy Monday, 2.16
Class
Assignments Due Today
- Journal Entry: Response to McLuhan.
- McLuhan, Marshall. The Gutenberg Galaxy. Excerpts: "A New Translation of Culture"
Wednesday, 2.18
Class
- Session in Rush Rhees Special Collections (with Pablo Alvarez): an array of early printed books.
Assignments Due Today
- Journal Entry: Response to McLuhan.
- McLuhan, Marshall. The Gutenberg Galaxy. Excerpts: "Typography Invades Manuscript Culture."
Friday, 2.20
- Workshop: The Virtual Bookshelf. Each team chooses for further study one of the early books that Pablo Alvarez assembled. Investigate the full history of the book from its origin to its current location by asking such questions as:
- Who printed it, under what circumstances?
- How can I recognize the physical object? What are its identifying characteristics? size, paper, font(s), binding, etc. (Examine a bookseller's catalogue for good examples of such bibliographical descriptions.)
- What does it look like? Reproduce (with digital images) key aspects of the book.
- Where did it come from? Map the provenance of the book from its place of origin to Rochester.
Week 7: The Gutenberg Galaxy Monday, 2.23
Class
Assignments Due Today
- Eisenstein, Elizabeth. "An Essay on Some Features of Print Culture." The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe. 42-64.
Wednesday, 2.25
Class
Assignments Due Today
- Eisenstein, Elizabeth. "An Essay on Some Features of Print Culture." The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe. 64 - 89.
- Swift, Jonathan. "On Poetry: A Rapsody." (1733) [Note: You will need a UR computer for access to this reading, or log in through Voyager if you are off-campus.]
Friday, 2.27
- Workshop: Timemaps with Nora Dimmock.
Week 8: The Gutenberg Galaxy Monday, 3.2
Class
Assignments Due Today
- Kernan, Alvin. Printing Technology, Letters, & Samuel Johnson. (1987)
- Introduction (pp 3-7)
- Chapter 2: Printing, Bookselling, Readers, and Writers in Eighteenth-Century London (pp 48-70)
- St. Clair, William. The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period. (2007)
- Chapter 1: Reading and Its Consequences (pp 10-18)
- Chapter 20: "Reading, Reception, and Dissemination." (pp 394-412)
Wednesday, 3.4
Class
Assignments Due Today
- Kernan, Alvin. Printing Technology, Letters, & Samuel Johnson. (1987)
- "Copyright and the Writer's Identity" (pp 97-102)
- St. Clair, William. The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period. (2007)
- Chapter 3: Intellectual Property (pp 43-65)
Friday, 3.6
- Workshop: Timemap Teamwork (with Nora Dimmock)
Spring Break
Week 10: Picture Problems in the Galaxy Monday, 3.16
Class
- Powerpoint available here.
- Imaging in the Age of Print: The Urge to Look
- Visual Satire in the age of Hogarth
Assignments Due Today
- Ivins, William. Prints and Visual Communication. Available here through the UR network.
- Chapter 1: Introduction
- Chapter 2: The Road Block Broken
Wednesday, 3.18
Class
- Powerpoint available here.
- The "exactly repeatable image": Lithography & Photography
Assignments Due Today
- Ivins, William. Prints and Visual Communication. Available here through the UR network.
- Chapter 4: The Tyranny of the Rule: The 17th and 18th Centuries
- Chapter 5: The Tyranny Broken: The 19th Century
Friday, 3.20
- Workshop: Timemap Teamwork (with Nora Dimmock)
Week 11: A New Kind of Book: The Case of William Blake Monday, 3.23
Assignments Due Today
Wednesday, 3.25
Class
Friday, 3.27
- Workshop: The William Blake Archive
- Journal Entry: Use the Image Search Tool in the Blake Archive to explore the images on MHH 15. The Image Search tool attempts to make it possible for you to find any image in Blake's illuminated books, and to find all images related to it. On plate 15 you'll note that there are several interlinear images (little people, squiggles, etc.) in addition to the large primary image at the bottom of the plate. Compare the image searching you did using the Image Search tool in the Blake Archive to the results you get by using another image-searching tool, such as Google Image Search, Flickr, etc. Describe your results.
- Blake, William. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Week 12: A New Kind of Book: E-readers and Digital Books Monday, 3.30
Class
- Digital Literacy, Digital Books
Assignments Due Today
- Rosen, Christine. People of the Screen The New Atlantis: A Journal of Technology and Society Fall 2008.
Tuesday, 3.31
Wednesday, 4.1
Class
New Ways of Reading Powerpoint here
Assignments Due Today
- Visel, Dan. Correspondences if:book: A Project of the Institute for the Future of the Book. 31 January 2009.
Friday, 4.3
Week 13: A Brief History of the Internet Monday, 4.6
Class
Assignments Due Today
Wednesday, 4.8
Class
Assignments Due Today
- Juskalian, Russ. Interview with Clay Shirky Part I and Part II Columbia Journalism Review. 19 December 2008.
Friday, 4.10
-
- Please type your transcription in either Word or notepad and save as a .txt file.
Week 14: The Future of Books Monday, 4.13
Class
Assignments Due Today
Wednesday, 4.15
Class
Assignments Due Today
- Werner, Sarah. Responses to Darnton.
Friday, 4.17
- Workshop: E-Readers with Susan Gibbons
-
- Journal Entry: Record your experience transcribing a Douglass letter. Reflect on the media and media translations/transformations involved.
Week 15: The Google Generation Monday, 4.20
Class
Assignments Due Today
- Kurzweil, Raymond.
- Interview on Computerworld. 11 November 2007.
- Additional comments from Computerworld interview here and here. 13 November 2007.
Wednesday, 4.22
Class
- The Google Generation in the Classroom
Assignments Due Today
Friday, 4.24
-
- Do some light research on your letter(s) so that you can add explanatory notes during the lab session.
Week 16: The Future of the Galaxy Monday, 4.27
Class
Assignments Due Today
Wednesday, 4.29
Class
Assignments Due Today
- Transcriptions (HTML files with annotations)
Friday, May 1
- All work is due, no exceptions.
|