Technology and Identity

Critical Thinking through understanding the impact of Technology upon Identity

Modules:

Module 1: Identity -- Self / Other

Readings:

     Primary:

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, or a Modern Prometheus (1818)

Charles Dickens, excerpt from Great Expectations (1860-61)

     Secondary:

excerpt from Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity

projection

Assignments

Module 2: Concept of Self

     Primary:

David Hume, "Of Personal Identity"

The Three Faces of Eve (Hollywood film starring Joanne Woodward, 1957)

sincere

     Secondary:

excerpt from Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (published 1959, Introduction, Chapter 1, Conclusion)

excerpt from Charles E. DeBose, “Codeswitching: Black English and Standard English in the African-American Linguistic Repetoire,” in Codeswitching, ed. Carol M. Eastman, Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters, 1992

Assignments

Module 3: Creating selves in Media

Activities:

Class discussions held in the MOO: Instructions for (Re)Creating a MOO Character

Readings:

     Primary:

excerpt from, Sherry Turkle, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet ( "Aspects of the Self," Ch. 7)

     Secondary:

Julian Dibbel, "A Rape in Cyberspace" (Village Voice, 21 December 1993); "I Feel Pretty," from My Tiny Life

Laura Miller, "Women and Children First," in Resisting the Virtual Life 49-58.

David Chandler, "Personal Home Pages and the Construction of Identities on the Web"

Assignments

Module 4: Self and Body

Readings

     Primary:

Anne Sexton, "Cinderella"

Paris Hilton: <http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0385296/photogallery>

Sut Jhally, Dreamworlds 2

Body Image

     Secondary:

Jean Kilbourne, Killing Us Softly

Sut Jhally, "Image-Based Culture"

Nick Gillespie, "Happy Birthday, MTV" (Reason on line)

Elizabeth Reid, "Identity and the Cyborg Body" (electronic reserves)

Assignment

Module 5: [advanced] Memory and Self / Group

Readings:

     Primary:

excerpt from Plato, The Phaedrus (on writing)

     Secondary:

excerpt from Walter J. Ong, “Writing is a Technology that Restructures Thought”

excerpt from Michael Hobart and Zachary Schiffman, “Orality and the Problem of Memory”

excerpt from Parker Palmer, The Courage to Teach

Brian V. Street, "A Critical Look at Walter Ong and The 'Great Divide,'" Social Literacies: Critical Approaches to Literacy in Development, Ethnography and Education, pp. 153-159 (Miami Students: on e-reserves)

Assignment

Go To OTHER SETS OF COURSE MODULES:

Metaphor as Technology

Narrative as Technology

BACK to Main Page