Here is the first post for this blog. On Thursday the 28th of August we will meet for the second time and discuss Howard Rheingold’s Smart Mobs. After reading the book please post your response/question to the this post by clicking the comments below. Your comment should be 300-400 words, and be submitted by Tuesday 12:01 AM. This will give me a chance to read them and prepare class before our discussion on Thursday. If you want more information and news on Smart Mobs you can check the Smart Mob blog.

Note: Later this week I will post a sample comment/question to provide a bit of context/direction . . .

Note II: Off-Campus Bookstore Directions

As much as I think a syllabus is probably never final, the draft that I will use on the first day of class is ready. Thanks to all those who gave feedback and suggestions. (The course description and schedule of readings links in the header also have been updated.)

After considering all the feedback, I have come up with the following rough outline. Several people suggested some more “mainstream texts” (Weinberger). Initially I was going to keep this class almost all theory, but rethought this a bit. Weinberger, Shirky, Rheingold, offer accessible ways to approach the material. Plus, I like the idea of bookending the class with Rheingold and Shirky, for despite their similarities the five years that separate their publication actually frame the class fairly well, with Rheingold serving as in introduction/hook to the issues. I am leaning more towards keeping Ong now, as it can serve as the introductory theoretical text, allowing me to avoid some general overview and using McLuhan. I have left off Kittler and Stiegler as while I think they are important (especially Stiegler) I also see them as especially challenging, and thought students might be better served if I provided an exegesis on the material (again especially Stiegler) rather than assigning complete texts. Still not decided on Eisenstein or Johns, and am contemplating adding in a literary text (film or novel) maybe something like Snow Crash. I like to leave the last week empty, to modify depending on how the class develops.

• Week One-August 21
• Class Introduction
• Week Two-August 28
• Rheingold
• Week Three-September 4
• Ong
• Week Four-September 11
• Print Culture (probably Eisenstein, maybe Johns)
• Week Five-September 18
• Derrida
• Week Six-September 25
• Heidegger
• Week Seven-October 2
• Gunkel, Thinking Otherwise
• Week Eight-October 9
• Castellas, The Networked Society
• Week Nine-October 16
• Weinberger, Everything is Miscellaneous
• Week Ten-October 23
• Walker, Blogging
• Week Eleven-October 30
• Bruns, Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond
• Week Twelve-November 6
• Galloway & Thacker, Exploit
• Week Thirteen-November 13
• Hayles, My Mother was a Computer
• Week Fourteen-November 20
• Shirky, Here Comes Everybody
• Week Fifteen-December 4

(Updated)

I am currently planning my fall ‘08 graduate class, Networked Knowledge. I thought I would post here about the syllabus, which I am currently working on, and attempt to elicit feedback and suggestions from others who are currently working on this type of material. So, first the course description:

In the introduction to Smart Mobs, Howard Rheingold argues that in the future people will be divided between “those who know how to use new media to band together [and] those who don’t” (xix). In this class we will examine how the technological change from the analog to the digital effects the ability to produce and disseminate knowledge and how networked media are changing not only the form of knowledge but its content as well. Once powerful institutions seem to be losing relevance by the day (consider how quickly Wikipedia has trumped Britannica). At the same time we should not too quickly view these new networked digital spaces as utopian democracies, for there are still substantial rhetorical and cultural forces at work. Central to our examination will be how technology, rhetoric, and ethics shape our use of networked communication.

To give a bit more of a frame to this, although I want a range of viewpoints and perspectives, I tend towards the theoretical and philosophic approaches versus say the business or social sciences end. As an example see below some of the texts I am considering, along with brief reasons. (One book I know I need is a good social-history of print culture, a study in the extensive changes brought about by the invention of the printing press.)

Note: there are a lot of other posts on this blog, that is because it has been used in prior semesters for other graduate classes.

• The Exploit: A Theory of Networks, Galloway and Thacker. This is currently one of my favorite books on network culture. Complex, yet concise Thacker and Galloway take their questioning further than most, past the simple rhetoric of “networks yeah!” that inform many works.
• The Question Concerning Technology, Heidegger. I will probably use his essay as well as an essay by Sam Weber from Mass Mediauras.
• Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky. I was originally planning on using Rheingold’s Smart Mobs as a “practical” text, but I think Shirky’s is a bit more up to date and covers many of the same themes.
• Paper Machine and Archive Fever, Derrida. Two central claims by Derrida in these texts are key. 1. The structure of the archive determines what can be archived. 2. Book and paper are just as much about “ideology” as they are about materiality.
• Blogs, Wikis, Second Life and Beyond, Axel Bruns. Bruns concept of produsage, that we have moved beyond industrial production is provocative and well argued.
• My Mother was a Computer, Katherine Hayles. I often have a lot of concerns about Hayles’s work, but I think this book, captures an important theme, the move towards a “simulation” architecture.
• Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, Walter Ong. Still on the fence about this one.

So this is the basic idea. I am also considering, Kittler Discourse Networks, Gunkel Thinking Otherwise, Castellas, Network Society, Stiegler Technics and Time, Jill Walker Rettberg’s Blogging (I actually haven’t read this last one, I am waiting for Amazon to get me a copy, but I respect her work, and guess that this book will be worth it. Although, teaching a text blind is a bit risky.)

Thoughts? Suggestions? Comments?

Update: Thanks to all those who have either emailed, twittered, or posted suggestions. One consistent/persistent question has been why not Ong? I must admit I am on the fence about Ong, I’ll try and explain why. For me Ong (Havelock and Innis to a lesser extent) provide too easy of a solution. That is their thesis/position seems seductively easy. First we have orality, then we have written, then we get a secondary orality with broadcast medium. So this approach relies on a sort of historical progression/evolution that I am largely uncomfortable with. Note how the subtitle of Ong’s book is the “technologizing of the word” as if this is simply a matter of speech becoming more technologized. Not to turn too Derridean here, but this seems to me heavily in the camp of thought as natural, speech as the next closest thing . . .As such Ong’s works often hedges towards techno-determinism without paying careful attention to technical differences (consider how he doesn’t elaborate much on the difference between script and movable type, a difference I might argue is greater than speech-script). This is not to say Ong is not worth teaching, in fact all of the above makes it worth discussing in class, but I also don’t like to teach a text so against the grain (so to speak). I prefer to teach with a text instead of point out its flaws so much, something I am not sure I can do with Ong. But, I am leaning more towards including it than not at this point . . .

This is an open thread. If you would like to share your final project, you can post a link here.

For out last class we will be discussing Super Columbine Massacre RPG!. You can download the game from the game’s main site. For background information you can read the entry on Wikipedia. You should also spend some time reading the website, particularly the press room and the artist’s statement. (The game only runs on a PC, so give yourself time to deal with the technical issues if you are going to run it in an emulator.)

Update: If you need help with the game you can find hints here.

Monday we will discuss Grand Theft Auto. As I indicated in class you should play for roughly six hours, enough time for you to understand how the game works. (Feel free to play more, as it can only help, and heck you get to call it homework.) If you are unfamiliar with the GTA series you might want to start by reading the Wikipedia entry for Grand Theft Auto as well as the specific entry for Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. Finally, this review is also helpful (particularly if you want to understand why some find this game so entertaining). This should provide you with some context.

On Monday we will be discussing First Person. You should read the essays (and accompanying responses) by Murray, Eskelinen, Moulthrop, Jenkins, Zimmerman, and Douglas & Hargadon. Post your comments/thoughts/rumminations below.

No this is not a “your momma” joke. For Monday read The Prologue, Parts I & III of Katherine N. Hayles My Mother was a Computer. Leave your comments/questions below. If you send me an email after Thursday I can respond with feedback from your final projects as my review of them will be done at that time (if not you will get them back in class on Monday).

Adam Brackin will be here to discuss all things ARG.

For class begin by reading this Quick Start Guide and then the wikipedia article Alternative Reality Games. Next you should sign up for an account and take a look around Adam’s current game, Conspiracy Asylum. If you are interested his previous game was called Deus City.

Once you have a sense of what ARGs are all about, you should read two short articles by Jane McGonigal (she is one of the creators behind the famous I Love Bees). “This Is Not a Game: Immersive Aesthetics & Collective Play” and “The Puppet Master Problem” are both available for download from her website. Finally, you might want to take a look The Lost Ring her latest game, designed for the Olympics-this is a high quality production project with people participating from numerous countries and at least eight different languages.

If you are looking for more information on ARGs the two most important internet sites are ARGNet and unfiction.