everything.study
21L.708

Technologies of Humanism

Undergraduate · Historical course

Spring 2003

This course explores the properties of non-sequential, multi-linear, and interactive forms of narratives as they have evolved from print to digital media. Works covered in this course range from the Talmud, classics of non-linear novels, experimental literature, early sound and film experiments to recent multi-linear and interactive films and games. The study of the structural properties of narratives that experiment with digression, multiple points of view, disruptions of time, space, and of storyline is complemented by theoretical texts about authorship/readership, plot/story, properties of digital media and hypertext. Questions that will be addressed in this course include: How can we define ‘non-sequentiality/multi-linearity’, ‘interactivity’, ‘narrative’. To what extend are these aspects determined by the text, the reader, the digital format? What are the roles of the reader and the author? What kinds of narratives are especially suited for a non-linear/interactive format? Are there stories that can only be told in a digital format? What can we learn from early non-digital examples of non-linear and interactive story telling?

Readings

  • Borges, Jorge Luis. Ficciones . Edited and with an introduction by Anthony Kerrigan. New York: Grove Press, 1962.
    Listed reading
  • Cortázar, Julio. Hopscotch. Edited by Marcela Breton. Translated from the Spanish by Gregory Rabassa. London: Harvill Press, 1998 [1963].
    Listed reading
  • Danielewski, Mark Z. House of Leaves. With introduction and notes by Johnny Truant. New York: Pantheon Books, 2000.
    Listed reading
  • Dante, Alighieri. The Divine Comedy. Translated by John Ciardi. New York: Modern Library, 1996.
    Listed reading
  • Hoffmann, E. T. A. The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr. Edited by E.T.A. Hoffmann. Translated and annotated by Anthea Bell; with an introduction by Jeremy Adler. London: Penguin, 1999.
    Listed reading
  • Joyce, James. Finnegans Wake. New York, Viking Press, 1966 [1939]. (Excerpts)
    Listed reading
  • Joyce, James. Ulysees. Edited with an introduction by Jeri Johnson. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993 [1922]. (Excerpts)
    Listed reading
  • Lightman, Alan. Einstein’s Dreams. New York: Warner, 1993, pp. 8-22, 38-42, 61-65, 75-84.
    Listed reading
  • Nabokov, Vladimir. Pale Fire . New York: Putnam, 1962.
    Listed reading
  • Paviç, Milorad, et al. Dictionary of the Khazars: A Lexicon Novel in 100,000 Words. Translated from the Serbo-Croatian by Christina Pribiçeviç-Zoriç. New York: Knopf, 1988.
    Listed reading
  • Perec, Georges. 53 Days . Edited by Harry Mathews and Jacques Roubaud, and translated from the French by David Bellos. Jaffrey, NH: David R. Godine, 2000.
    Listed reading
  • Perec, Georges. Life - A User’s Manual. Translated by David Bellos. Boston: D. R. Godine, 1987.
    Listed reading
  • Queneau, Raymond. Cent Mille Milliard De Poems. Paris: Gallimard, 1961.
    Listed reading
  • Queneau, Raymond. Exercises in Style. Translated by Barbara Wright. New York: New Directions, 1981.
    Listed reading
  • Schmidt, Arno. Zettels Traum. Frankfurt/M.: S. Fischer, 2002.
    Listed reading
  • Douglas, J. Yellowlees. “I Have Said Nothing.” Eastgate Quarterly Review of Hypertext 1, no. 2.
    Listed reading
  • Greco, Diane. Cyborg. Engineering the Body Electric. Eastgate Systems, Inc.
    Listed reading
  • Jackson, Shelley. Patchwork Girl. Eastgate Systems, Inc.
    Listed reading
  • Joyce, Michael. Afternoon, a Story . Eastgate Systems, Inc.
    Listed reading
  • Moulthrop, Stuart. Victory Garden . Eastgate Systems, Inc.
    Listed reading
  • Strickland, Stephanie. True North. Eastgate Systems, Inc.
    Listed reading
  • Berlin: Symphony of the City . Directed and Edited by Walter Ruttmann. Produced by Karl Freund. Germany: Fox-Europa, 1927.
    Listed reading
  • Berliner sehen. A Hypermedia Documentary for German Studies, demonstrated by Ellen Crocker and Kurt Fendt. 22 January 1999.
    Listed reading
  • Dante’s Inferno . Directed by Peter Greenaway. 1993.
    Listed reading
  • A La Rencontre de Philippe. By Gilberte Furstenberg with Stuart A. Malon. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993.
    Listed reading
  • Groundhog Day . Directed by Harold Ramis. Story and Screenplay by Danny Rubin. 1993.
    Listed reading
  • Man with a Movie Camera . Directed By Dziga Vertov. Edited by Elisaveta Svilova. 1929.
    Listed reading
  • Memento . Directed by Christopher Nolan. 2000.
    Listed reading
  • No Recuerdo. An interactive narrative documentary by Douglas Morgenstern.
    Listed reading
  • Prosperos’ Books. Directed by Peter Greenaway. 1991.
    Listed reading
  • Sliding Doors . Directed and written by Peter Howitt. 1998.
    Listed reading
  • Fontana, Bill. Cologne-Kyoto Sound-Bridge. 1993.
    Listed reading
  • Ruttmann, Walter. Remixes . 1998.
    Listed reading
  • Ruttmann, Walter. Weekend. 1992.
    Listed reading
  • Wühr, Paul. Soundseeing Munich . 1987.
    Listed reading
  • Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author.” In Image, Music, Text. New York: Hill and Wang, 1988, pp. 142-148.
    Listed reading
  • Bush, Vannevar. “As We May Think.” The Atlantic Monthly 176, 1 (July 1945): 101-108.
    Listed reading
  • Eco, Umberto. “Intentio Lectoris.” In The Limits of Interpretation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990, pp. 44-63.
    Listed reading
  • Goldenberg, Robert. “Talmud.” In Back to the Sources . Edited by Barry W. Holtz. Reading the classic Jewish texts. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984, pp. 129-151.
    Listed reading
  • Iser, Wolfgang. “The Reading Process.” In The Implied Reader. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974, pp. 274-294.
    Listed reading
  • Iser, Wolfgang. “Interaction between Text and Reader.” In Prospecting: From Reader Response to Literary Anthropology . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989, pp. 31-41.
    Listed reading
  • Jenkins, Henry. “Game Design as Narrative Architecture.” In First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game . Edited by Pat Harrington and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003.
    Listed reading
  • Landow, George P. Hypertext 2.0: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.
    Listed reading
  • Manovich, Lev. “Database.” In The Language of New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002, pp. 213-243.
    Listed reading
  • Murray, Janet. Hamlet on the Holodeck. New York: Free Press, 1997.
    Listed reading
  • Nelson, Ted. Literary Machines. Sausalito, CA: Mindful Press, 1993.
    Listed reading
  • Poulet, Georges. “Phenomenology of Reading” (1969). In The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism . Edited by Vincent B. Leitch et al. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001, pp. 1317-1333.
    Listed reading
  • Schiller, Friedrich. On the Aesthetic Education of Man, in a Series of Letters . Edited and translated by Elizabeth M. Wilkinson and L. A. Willoughby. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967, letters 14 and 15.
    Listed reading
  • Weizenbaum, Joseph. “Contextual Understanding by Computers”, Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery 8 (1967).
    Listed reading
  • Weizenbaum, Joseph. “ELIZA – A Computer Program for the Study of Natural Language Communication Between Man and Machine.” Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery 9 (1966).
    Listed reading
Sources