Class 1 (M., Mar. 28) — Introduction

• Overview of the course topic, readings, assignments, and enrollment/section policies.

Class 2 (W., Mar. 30) — The Idea of Media

• Marshall McLuhan, "The Medium is the Message" (1964) 
  (Note: read only this essay in the PDF, which also includes a second essay)

Class 3 (F. Apr. 1 ) — From Oral to Writing Media

• Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (1982)  -- read the following pages:
• 16-27
• 29 (read the discussion of Marshall McLuhan on this page)
• 31-77

Class 4 (M. Apr. 4) — [Colloquium Class]

• Discussion with the Professor.
  (Classes titled on the syllabus "Colloquium Class" are breaks from the usual lecture format of the course. Usually placed at the end of a logical sequence of topics, these classes will include time for more informal conversations between the professor and students. They are occasions for the professor to ask students their views, for students to ask questions of the professor, and--in general--for reflecting thoughtfully on topics.)
• Special early assignment due in section meeting in 2nd week of course: Creating your online readings system: Because so many of the readings in this course are online, students are required to demonstrate in section to their TA that they have the means to annotate and save copies of online materials according to one of the methods described in Guide to Downloading and Managing Online Readings.  For your section meeting this week, bring on your laptop or other digital device copies of the two assigned readings for Week 1 of the course (originally PDFs) plus at least one of the readings for Week 2 that was originally a Web page. These are readings that you should have downloaded, stored in an organized manner, and highlighted or otherwise annotated.  If you do not own a laptop, tablet, or other digital device, then bring a printed copy of one assigned reading. 

Class 5 (W., Apr. 6) — "Close Reading" (Past and Present)

• Plato, Myth of Theuth on the invention of writing, short excerpt from Phaedrus
• Alberto Manguel,
• "The Silent Readers", from his A History of Reading (1996)
•  "How Pinocchio Learned to Read", open-access version of essay from his A Reader on Reading (2011)
• Cleanth Brooks, "The Heresy of Paraphrase", from his The Well Wrought Urn (1947)

Class 6 (F., Apr. 8) — "Distracted Reading" and "Distant Reading" in the Information Age

• Reading as Distraction (Guest lecturer: Elizabeth Floyd)
• Nicholas Carr, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" (2008)
• Paul La Farge, "The Deep Space of Digital Reading" (2016)
• N. Katherine Hayles, “Hyper and Deep Attention” (2007)
• Distant Reading and Data Mining (Guest lecturer: Tyler Shoemaker)
• Franco Moretti, Graphs, Maps, Trees (2005), pp. 1-33 (print book; please purchase)

Class 7 (M., Apr. 11) — [Colloquium Class]

• Discussion with the professor. This "Colloquium Class" will use as a thought-prompt two works:
• Agrippa: A Book of the Dead, an art-book created in 1982 by Kevin Begos, Jr., Dennis Ashbaugh, and William Gibson. The work is documented on The Agrippa Files, which was created by UCSB English Dept. faculty and students. Read the following pages on the site to learn about art-book:
• Introduction
• Description of the book and photos of selected pages
• Description and information about William Gibson's poem on the diskette in the book
• Also be sure to read the full text of the William Gibson's poem on the writer's official sit
• Shelley Jackson, "Snow" (2014)

Class 8 (W., Apr. 13) — The Communications Revolution & the Digital Principle

• Claude E. Shannon, "The Mathematical Theory of Communication," pp. 3-6 (1948) 
• Warren Weaver, "Recent Contributions to the Mathematical Theory of Communication" (1949)

Class 9 (F., Apr. 15) — The Computer Revolution (1): History of the Computer

• Vannevar Bush, "As We May Think" (1945)
• Paul E. Ceruzzi, A History of Modern Computing (2003), pp. 13-46
• Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray, Computer: A History of the Information Machine (1996), pp. 233-58

Class 10 (M., Apr. 18) — The Computer Revolution (2): Rise of the Network

• Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray, Computer: A History of the Information Machine (2003), pp. 283-97
• Richard T. Griffiths, "From ARPANET to World Wide Web" (2002)
• National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), "Beginner's Guide to HTML," Part I (2001)

Class 11 (W., Apr. 20) — The Computer Revolution (3): The Emergence of Digital "New Media"

• The Original "New Media": Writing
• Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (1982), pp. 77-103 
• Digital "New Media"
• Lev Manovitch, The Language of New Media (2001), pp. 18-48, 218-28 
• Tim O'Reilly, "What is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software" (2005) (read all the sequential pages of this online essay)
• Social Media  (Guest lecturer: Alanna Bartolini)

Fiction Unit

Class 12 (F., Apr. 22) — Fiction in the Age of Media, Communication, & Information

• Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 (1965) -- read at least to page 88 by today's class. (Print book; available at UCEN Bookstore and elsewhere)
• Help on the concept of entropy

Class 13 (M,. Apr. 25) — (Continued)

• Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 (1965) -- finish rest of the novel. (Print book) 

Class 14 (W., Apr. 27) — (Continued) + [Colloquium Class]

• Conclusion of lectures on The Crying of Lot 49
• Discussion with professor on the novel

Class 15 (F., Apr. 29) — [Midterm Exam]

• Exam on readings in the course to date. The exam is "factual," and is designed to reward students who have regularly kept up with the assignments and attended lectures and sections. See fuller description.

3. The Postindustrial & Neoliberal Age

      Information's Impact on Work and Power

 Week 6