Course Requirements - Oral Project - Syllabus

DMS 219 (#459956)
Survey of Digital Literature
T/R 4-5:50 PM, 112 CFA
Dr. Glazier

This course offers students the opportunity to conduct an intensive survey of the field of digital literature through a focus on the screening of digital texts. Primary emphasis will be on "reading" the digital texts presented. Course will also cover the relationship of innovative poetry to digital media, the phenomenon of the Internet and its relation to "the I", meaning-making through the context, design, and writerly qualities of Web pages, traditions of hypertext, the materiality of code, the history of e-poetry, and digital media poetry in the academy. Special attention will be given to understanding a broad range of innovative works in the medium including hypertext, digital and kinetic literature, and works in networked and programmable media, and to examining, interpreting, and interrogating the key theoretical texts of the most significant practitioners in the field. The course will include foundational early theory, writings from formative scholarly hypertext theorists, and work by more recent cutting-edge independent digital theorists. Attention will be given to the role of programming as a social, literary, and language-related act. The cultural impact of films related to programming/cyberculture (Tron, Tomb Raider, The Matrix, AI, etc.) will be discussed, with film screenings as appropriate. Discussion of key cyberculture and media theory authors as relevant. Online texts as appropriate, especially for a sense of current research in the field. Course Requirements: midterm, final exam. Students are encouraged to keep a screening journal. Text: Glazier, Digital Poetics.