1 English 248-002: Literature & Contemporary Life I N F O R M A T I O N O V E R L O A D Fall 2013 (Tu/Th 12:30-1:45pm in ENG B38) Instructor: Rachael Sullivan Email: [email protected] Office hours: Wednesday 3:30-4:30, Thursday 2-3 Office: Curtin Hall 284 Main course website: http://courses.rachaelsullivan.com/248 Course Description Information overload is a contemporary cultural concern with a rich past. This course covers a broad sampling of texts from different time periods and genres to consider how our current confrontation and struggle with digital technologies both is and is not new. We will pay attention to the various forms that information overload takes: a pathological condition, a burden on attention and social bonds, a renaissance of knowledge access and production, and even a non-issue. Most importantly for our purposes, the texts we read and view will help us ask how our understanding of knowledge, literature, and even ourselves evolves alongside technological innovations. Questions raised in this course include: How do people experience and describe information overload (or a sense of “too much”) across cultures and chapters of technological development? In what ways is the contemporary predicament of information management similar to and different from the past? How does information overload contribute to distraction and changing modes of attention, and why is this relevant to today’s readers of literature? What are the differences between information, data, and literature? What values are at stake in efforts to make this distinction? If we accept the popular belief that humans are becoming increasingly dependent on their reference tools and technological devices, what new types of machine-human hybrids emerge? What reasons might we find for resisting such dependence? Through engaging with these (and other) questions and the texts on the syllabus, we will look at how information overload functions as a subject matter, a form or structuring device, and a feeling generated by the work itself. This final affective quality of information overload is a familiar frenemy of college students, so I hope that you will draw on your personal experiences to enlighten our discussions and inform your writing. Required Texts • Walt Whitman, The Portable Whitman – with an Introduction by Michael Warner (Penguin) • Don DeLillo, White Noise (Penguin) • Course reader, available at Clark Graphics (2915 North Oakland Avenue) Assignments & Grade Weights • 7 responses (35%; you can skip 3 of 10 total) • Take-home midterm, 3-4 pgs. (20%) • Internet poetry assignment (10%) • Final paper, 4-5 pgs. (25%) • Participation (10%) 2 Schedule While major due dates won’t change, check the course website for the most current version of the schedule. CR = course reader, OL = online (links will be on course website) ***Assignments marked “read,” “write,” or “watch” should be completed prior to that class period. Unit 1: Predigital explorations & anxieties 9/3 Introduction to the class 9/5 Read: Weinberger (CR pg. 6, skip prologue) and Carr (CR pg. 15) selections #11 Write: Response 1 Week 1 In class: Discussion 9/10 Read: excerpt from Blair Too Much to Know (CR pg. 30) Watch: Shirky “It’s Not Information Overload. It’s Filter Failure” (22 min.) (OL) Write: In the previous class, I assigned you to one of the following: Pinterest, Flipboard, Bundlr, Recollect, Addictomatic, Storify, Listly, Diigo. At home, explore your site’s home page and “About” page(s). In your notebook, jot down: • The site’s motto or tagline(s)? • Does the site have illustrations or photos? What do the images show? What is the tone or feeling of the images? Why are they there? • Is it a web application only, or is there also a mobile app? Week 2 • Is there a pricing structure, or is it free? In class, we’ll share our findings and talk more about how these sites construct their users and relate to Blair and Shirky. In class: Discussion; share findings 9/12 Read: Hugo, book 5 chapter 2 from The Hunchback of Notre Dame (OL) #21 Write: Response 2 In class: Discussion 9/17 Read: Michael Warner’s introduction in Portable Whitman (xi-xxxvi) and “Song of Myself” sections 1-9, 12-15 In class: Discussion 9/19 Read: excerpt from Gleick The Information chapter 5 (CR pg. 53), excerpt from Week 3 Whitman Specimen Days (CR pg. 49) and “Song of Myself” sections 19-20, 23-24, 31, 33, 42-43, 46-52 In class: Discussion 9/24 Read: Whitman “A Song for Occupations” (pg. 68) and his 1855 preface in Portable #31 Whitman (pgs. 330-352) Write: Response 3 In class: Discussion Week 4 9/26 Read: excerpt from Gleick The Information chapter 7 (CR pg. 75), kafka “My Neighbor” (CR pg. 80), and Altschul “The Future’s Not Ours to See” (CR pg. 81) In class: Discussion 10/1 Read: Forster “The Machine Stops” (CR pg. 86) #41 Write: Response 4 In class: Discussion Week 5 10/3 Read: Benjamin “The Storyteller” (CR pg. 104) In class: Discussion 3 10/8 Read: Stein “The Gradual Making of The Making of Americans” and The Making of Americans excerpt (read from the first page of the excerpt until the first full break in the page, stopping just before “Sometimes in listening to a conversation…”) (OL) Write: Choose one passage or group of sentences from Making that you think you 6 (maybe?) understand. In your notebook, do your best to explain the passage and what you believe it means. See the course website for further guidance. Week In class: Discussion 10/10 Read: excerpt from Goldsmith Uncreative Writing chapter 8 (handout) and re-read a #51 portion of The Making of Americans in light of Goldsmith’s argument Write: Response 5 In class: Discussion; review for midterm; take-home midterm questions distributed 10/15 Midterm due test1 In class: TBA Note: I am trying to arrange for today’s class to be held in a computer lab. Check the course website for updates as this date draws near. 7 10/17 Read: Bush “As We May Think” (CR pg. 135) Write: Half the class will play a Wikipedia game, and the other half will try to reach Week the bottom of Dina kelberman’s “I’m Google.” In your notebook, write about your experience. What were you thinking? Did anything surprise you? How hard were you working to form “associative trails,” as Bush calls them? In class: Discussion Unit 2: Signal & noise 10/22 Read: Borges “Library of Babel” (CR pg. 117) “Funes the Memorious” (pg. 121) and #61 “The Aleph” (pg. 126) 8 Write: Response 6 In class: Discussion Week 10/24 Read: Pynchon “Entropy” (CR pg. 163) and Menkman “A Technological Approach to Noise” (OL pgs. 12-14, pg. 28) In class: Discussion 10/29 Read: DeLillo White Noise Part 1 (chapters 1-11) In class: Discussion 10/31 Read: White Noise Part 1 (chapters 12-20) Week 9 #71 Write: Response 7 In class: Discussion 11/5 Read: White Noise Part 2 (chapter 21) 10 In class: Discussion 11/7 Read: White Noise Part 3 (chapters 22-32) Week In class: Discussion 11/12 Read: White Noise Part 3 (chapters 33-40) 11 In class: Discussion 11/14 Read: Packet of selected poems by women (handout) Week #81 Write: Response 8 In class: Discussion 4 Unit 3: The internet is made of cats. 11/19 Read: Blown to Bits “The Internet as a System and Spirit” (OL) and Postman “Informing Ourselves to Death” (OL) 2 1 In class: Discussion; final paper guidelines distributed 11/21 Read: Sterling “Maneki Neko” (CR pg. 173) Week #91 Watch: Shirky “How Cognitive Surplus Will Change the World” (13 min.) (OL) Write: Response 9 In class: Discussion 3 11/26 Read: Barth “Literature of Exhaustion” (CR pg. 192) 1 In class: Discuss reading and review final paper guidelines 11/28 No class Week Thanksgiving 12/3 Read: Goldsmith introduction, chapter 1 pages 24-33, and chapter 12 from #101 Uncreative Writing (CR pg. 200) 4 Write: Response 10 1 In class: Discuss reading and review strategies for organizing an essay 12/5 Read: Excerpt from Goldsmith Fidget (handout) and your choice of one or two pieces Week .poem. from the list posted on the course website Write: Complete the Internet Poetry assignment. In class: Discussion and show-and-tell 12/10 In class: Paper draft workshop 15 .draft. You must come with a printed paper draft (2 full pages min.) to participate in class today. Week 12/12 Watch: South Park “You Have 0 Friends” (21 min.) (OL) In class: Concluding discussion 12/13 – study day 12/17 – final papers due via D2L dropbox by 11:59pm University policies For a detailed list of university policies regarding disabilities, incompletes, religious observances, and academic misconduct, see: http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/SecU/SyllabusLinks.pdf Course policies • Attendance The general English department standard for attendance is two weeks of absences without a penalty. This means four class absences without consequence, other than the problem of falling behind in your work. Upon your fifth absence, your final grade will drop by a half-letter and continue to drop with each absence beyond the allowed four. If you are experiencing an emergency situation, please talk to me as soon as possible. Don’t wait. 5 • Punctuality As a sign of respect for me and other students, I ask that you come to class on time. Near the beginning of each class, I will pass around a sign-in sheet. If you arrive after the sign-in sheet has circulated back to me, you are officially late.