The Culture of New Technologies

COMM 534
Spring 2002
Thursday 6:45 - 9:45
Annenberg 328

Marita Sturken
office: Annenberg 321C
tel: 740-3950 fax: 740-8036
sturken@usc.edu
Office Hours: Tues. 2-3, Thurs. 4:30-6 and by appointment.

Course description:
This course examines the social and cultural implications of new technologies in the context of communication and cultural theory. It takes an in-depth approach to the cultural impact of new media such as the Internet, multimedia, digital imaging, and genetic science by examining them in the context of contemporary debates about artificial intelligence, freedom of speech and censorship, photographic realism, the future of the book, intellectual property, cyborgs, and identity in virtual communities. This course also focuses on the representation of contemporary technology in cultural forms such as film and television, including representations of the computer, cyborgs as figures of contemporary culture, and the visions of technology throughout history.

Course requirements:
This class consists of a weekly seminar/lecture, with an ongoing on-line discussion. Students will be required to do class presentations and to bring online materials to class. Evaluations of students performance will be made on the basis of participation in class and a midterm paper (30%), a final research paper (40%), and a class presentation (30%). Alternately students can write one extensive (20 pages plus) research paper, for which they will submit a proposal and a rough draft.

Course Texts:
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, 1818
Jeffrey Sconce, Haunted Media, 2000
Paul du Gay, Stuart Hall, et al, Doing Cultural Studies: The Story of the Sony Walkman, 1997
N. Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman, 1999
A reader of articles will be available at University Graphics/Magic Machine in University Village.

Week 1, Jan.10: Introduction: The Politics of Technology

Week 2, Jan. 17: The Technological "Birth" of Frankenstein
Screening: Excerpts from Frankenstein (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)
Reading:
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Week 3, Jan. 24: Cultural Theory and Technology
Reading:
Paul du Gay, Stuart Hall, et al, Doing Cultural Studies: The Story of the Sony Walkman
Kevin Robins and Frank Webster, "The Hollowing of Progress"
Mark Poster, "The Being of Technologies"
Margaret Morse, "An Ontology of Distraction"

Week 4, Jan. 31: Modernity and the Mechanical
Reading:
Jeffrey Sconce, Haunted Media, Introduction and Chapter 1
Barbara Maria Stafford, "Artifical Intensity"
Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"
Anne Friedberg, "The Mobilized and Virtual Gaze in Modernity"
Scott Bukatman, "Gibson's Typewriter"
Friedrich Kittler, Introduction to Gramophone, Film, Typewriter

Field Trip: Getty Museum, Devices of Wonder Exhibition

Week 5, Feb. 7: Electronic Presence and Postmodernity
Reading:
Jeffrey Sconce, Haunted Media, Chapters 2, 3, 4
Bill Nichols, "The Work of Culture in the Age of Cybernetic Systems"
Umberto Eco, "The City of Robots"
David Harvey, "Postmodernism"

Field Trip: Museum of Jurassic Technology

Week 6, Feb. 14: Thinking Systems: Artificial Intelligence and Theories of Information
Reading:
Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman, Prologue and Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4
Sherry Turkle, "Making a Pass at a Robot" and "Taking Things at Interface Value"
Dan Schiller, "The Information Commodity"

Week 7, Feb. 21: Cyborgs and the Question of the Human
Screening: Terminator, Blade Runner
Reading:
Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman, Chapters 6, 7
Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline," Cyborgs and Space"
David Tomas, "Feedback and Cybernetics"
Vivian Sobchack, "Beating the Meat/Surviving the Text"
Donna Haraway, "Cyborg Manifesto"

Week 8, Feb. 28: Defining and Theorizing the Virtual
Reading:
Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman, Chapters 10, 11
Lev Manovich, excerpts from The Language of New Media: Introduction, What is New Media?, The Screen and the User, The Database
Mark Poster, "Theorizing the Virtual"
Vicki Kirby, "Reality Bytes"
William J. Mitchell, "Recombinant Architecture"
Kevin Robins and Frank Webster, "The Virtual Pacification of Space"

Midterm Paper due.

Week 9, March 7: Digital Images and Morphing
Reading:
William J. Mitchell, excerpt from The Reconfigured Eye
David Tomas, "From the Photograph to Postphotographic Practice"
Kevin Robins, "The Virtual Unconscious in Postphotography"
Geoff Batchen, "Spectres of Cyberspace"
Mark Wolf, "A Brief History of Morphing"
Scott Bukatman, "Taking Shape"
Evelynn Hammonds, "Technologies of Race"

Spring Break Week of March 14

Week 10, March 21: CD-Roms, DVDs, and Hypertext: Redefining the Author and the Text
Reading:
Michel Foucault, "What is an Author?"
Janet Murray, excerpts from Hamlet on the Holodeck
George Landow, "Reconfiguring the Text"
Mark Poster, "Authors Analogue and Digital"
Paul Duguid, "Material Matters"
Peter Lyman, "Information Superhighways, Virtual Communities, and Digital Libraries"

Week 11, March 28: Cybercrime, Hackers, and Viruses
Reading:
Douglas Thomas, "Rethinking the Cyberbody"
Douglas Thomas, excerpts from Hacker Culture
Douglas Thomas and Brian Loader, "Cybercrime"

Week 12, April 4: Redefining Entertainment/Intellectual Property/The Expert
Reading:
Tony Miller, et al, "Hollywood's Global Rights"
Michael Lewis, excerpts from Next
Lawrence Lessig, excerpts from The Future of Ideas
Lev Manovich, "The New Language of Cinema"

Week 13, April 11: Community, Audience, and the Politics of Access
Reading:
Manuel Castells, "Virtual Communities or Network Society?" and "The Politics of the Internet I"
William Mitchell, "Homes and Neighborhoods" and "Getting Together"
Mark Poster, "Nations, Identities, and Global Technologies" and "Virtual Ethnicity"
Katie Hafner, "When the Virtual is Not Enough"
Richard Chabran and Romelia Salinas, "Place Matters"
Susan Zickmund, "Approaching the Radical Other"
Howard Reingold, "Look Who's Talking"
Pradeep Jeganathan, "Eelam.com"

Week 14, April 18: The New Science and Artificial Life
Reading:
Donna Haraway, "Gene"and "FemaleMan meets Oncomouse"
Evelyn Fox Keller, "Nature, Nurture, and the Human Genome Project"
Marcy Darnovsky, "The Case Against Designer Babies"
Barbara Katz Rothman, "Cancer is (not) a Genetic Disease"
Sherry Turkle, "Artificial Life as the New Frontier"
Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman, Chapter 9
Sarah Kember, "Get Alife"

Week 15, April 25: Technology and the Corporate University
Reading:
Kevin Robins and Frank Webster, "Deconstructing the Academy"
David Noble, "Digital Diploma Mills"
James Der Derian, "Virtuous War Goes to Hollywood"
other readings to be decided