The Culture of Information: Living in a Digital World

It seems relatively simple to think about the impact of technology on our lives. Since the development of the automobile and the computer, life is more harried: we are expected to do more, to produce more, to be more places at once. But there are much less obvious ways that new technologies affect us, visible only if one takes a look at the special connection between media (computer, television, film) and form. What is form? Well, of course, there is literary form: the sonnet is a poetic form that first made its way into English during the 16th century; the novel is a prose form that arrived more recently, during the 18th century. But in a broader way, everything we perceive or think is in some form or another, whether it be in the form of a word or an image. Anything formless is also unthinkable: reality must be always be formed in some way or another in order to be conceivable at all. Moreover (and this may surprise you) many literary theorists think that our idea of what it means to be a person -- the set of expectations, beliefs, feelings, and ideas we have about what it means and feels like to be a self -- took on its modern form during the late 18th century, at the moment in "the print revolution" of mass publication and mass literacy. Will "the computer revolution" change our ideas, our feelings, our sense of who we are?

This class is organized into three units: Narrative as Technology, Metaphor as Technology, Technology and Identity. The major premise of this course is that various forms (sentence structure, narrative, metaphor) are themselves "technologies." --Wait, you probably wish to say, are you suggesting that a sentence is like a car??? Well, sort of, except that it is a technology for thinking rather than for moving. What kind of technology is any given form? That is, what kinds of knowledge or feeling do various forms produce, and how? We will look at how narrative forms which change depending upon their media affect the way we tell our life stories, and consequently what we think and feel about ourselves. Metaphors provide pathways for thought and feeling without us being conscious of them: we will look at the part they play in emotions such as anger, even the explosive anger leading to violent crimes such as rape. Why look at these "old" technologies? To help us better understand the new. New media also produce forms of life and thought, sometimes by changing narrative forms (and even sentence structures, as we will see), sometimes by offering new metaphors and with them, new ways of being human. Thus in the last unit, we will look at how new technologies affect our sense of identity. What kinds of selves are now imaginable, that weren't before, given that we use digital technologies to think with, in the same way that we use sentences to think with? Of course computers enter not only into our practices and habits, but also into our dreams: how do we view ourselves now that we use computers as metaphors for delimiting what it means to be human?

History of this Class

This class has received two large grants from the State of Ohio to develop, as you can see from going to the web site we produced for that grant called "Technology and the Humanities." As you can see there, I have been working on it in conjunction with many other people for the last four years. Also, I have been teaching a version of this class as a first-year course and as a capstone course, as you can see when you go to the English Technology web site. If at the end of the semester you give me formal permission, I would like to "publish" your Blogs at the English Tech site, just as some of the students' final projects appear here. You are welcome to browse throughout both related sites.

Work Required

This is a thinking class. I believe that, in order to think well, one must read carefully, slowly, write about what one has read, and then discuss it with others who have different ideas and perspectives. Light on reading assignments (we'll read a great variety, but not a great number of pages!), this class requires the equivalent of about 10 double-spaced typed pages per week of writing. I say "the equivalent" because your writing will not consist in formal papers (with one exception), but rather in postings to your own Blog (which I'll help you set up) and commenting on Blogs by your classmates. If you get into the habit of note-taking and writing (thinking aloud via your writing, in a public way) as you read, the work in this class will begin to seem very easy indeed. By the end of the class, you will have a Blog that is the equivalent, in terms of pages and thoughtfulness, of an Honors Thesis -- or perhaps even a Masters Thesis! Because the course requires weekly writing, there will be no midterm or final. There will be one three-page, double-spaced, typed formal paper that is written in stages, turned in with accompanying Web-site design plans and notes; weekly writing will be suspended during the time that you work on this assignment. Instead of the Final Exam, you may revise your Blog, based on my comments and comments by others, and/or add to it. Your final Blog revisions must be completed by the date and time of the Final Exam.

Notice that 70% of your grade will come from averaging your weekly grades: it is not possible to pass this class by doing the Blog at the end of the semester. Blog assignments cannot be turned in late except under special circumstances: they are due at the time of our class meeting even if you are unable to attend class.

Grades

I will grade your Blog activity not by assignment but in total, once a week. Because my comments on your Blog will contain a grade, I will not post them publicly on your Blog but will email them to you and hand them out in class. In addition, the grades for each week of Blog-work will be posted in Blackboard on our course Web site.

Your Blogs will not be graded for grammar, but rather for the quality and profundity of your thinking process. Sometimes good grammar and style help you think more clearly and deeply. When certain grammatical or stylistic problems are in some way hampering your thinking process, I will print out that portion of your Blog and show you ways you might revise. I'll only do this, however, when I think seeing various versions of what you are trying to say might deepen your thinking in some way.

Attendance

More than three absences, excused or not, will lower your grade; after five absences, you will be asked to drop the class, except in the case of sustained medical problems recognized as such by the university.

Create Your Blog

You are welcome to use any Blog you would like to use, as long as you can give me the URL and as long as it has the capacity to accept comments from your classmates. But if you don't have a preference, it is VERY EASY to start your Blog:

1. Go to http://www.blogger.com/start
2. Follow the instructions for making your Blog.
3. Send me the blog address: http://__________.blogspot.com

All the URLs for Blogs will be posted at our Class Blog List Site: http://www.units.muohio.edu/englishtech/blog.htm

As is usual with all new technologies, it is best to save your work just in case there is some kind of failure. After you work in your Blog or in the Blog of a classmate, highlight what you have written with your cursor, and then click on "Edit, Copy" at the top of your browser. Open Word and click on "Edit, Paste." Save your document as the class date (MMDDYY) in a folder called "InfoCulture."

Books

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, ISBN: 0226468011

Joseph Williams, Style: Toward Clarity and Grace, ISBN: 0-226-89915-2

Edward Tufte, “The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint,” ISBN: 0-9613921-5-0

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, ISBN 0-451-52771-2

Henry David Thoreau, Walden, ISBN: 0486284956 Dover Editions

Philip K. Dick, Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), ISBN: 0345350472

All the class readings other than these books are available at the public Web Site or here, below. When you come to a link in your Schedule (below), click on it: a new window will open containing the reading and/or the Assignment.

For Further Reading, see the Class Reserve List.

Class Schedule of Readings and Assignments
Available at: http://www.units.muohio.edu/englishtech/ENG180UFall2004/180uSchedule.htm

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