Media Archaeology

4 credits · Graduate

This graduate seminar examines the field of media archaeology. While this burgeoning and somewhat amorphous field includes a plethora of approaches, it has been broadly shaped by an emphasis on heterogeneity, rupture, and discontinuity rather than singular origins, linear causality, and teleological progression; a deprivileging of realistic historical representation in favor of alternate, even counterfactual trajectories; an exploration of media practices beyond narrative entertainment and theatrical exhibition. We will read foundational texts in the field alongside more recent interventions on a wide range of media, including paper, screens, sound, television, wireless, and virtual reality.