Advanced Electronic Writing
Fall 2009 LITR 1010D S01
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Instructor: John Cayley
Please check the Detailed Class Information for up to date information about this course.
Information on meeting times for this course can be found on Course Schedule at http://selfservice.brown.edu
Course Description
Experiments in nonlinear narrative within the hypertext environment of the computer. For students with some experience in the electronic environment. S/NC.
Instructor's Description
The aim of this course is to produce - individually or in collaborative arrangements - a significant work of writing in networked and/or programmable media. We will also work to place our efforts in context - in their historical, critical context - to become more aware of what it is we are doing when we use digital systems to write, or when we create instruments for and of writing. Especially in the first weeks of the course - before your projects become the course vectors and directives - we will also do a certain amount of reading: reading other works of writing in digital media and some critical writing in the field. We will continue to read, collectively, throughout the course.
This is an advanced writing workshop. You\\\'ve written before; you have something to write; and you want to explore new ways to write it, in and in amongst digital media. That still gives us a great deal of leeway concerning aspects of what might be recognized as the underlying or manifest \\\'genre\\\' of what you make. There are no expectations concerning your self-identification as, for example, a fiction writer, poet, playwright, or performance writer. Students from entirely other fields who are ready to explore writing seriously are also welcome. At the same time, you will be strongly encouraged to subject your work to the genre-bending and form-shifting forces that emanate from digital media. I hope that your engagement with \\\'new\\\' media will change the way you write. You may also be a part of changing potentials within writing itself.
What about technology and familiarity with software that is used to produce creative work in digital media? Again, there are no prerequisites. I assume that you will have some experience of one or more digital technologies: Flash, DreamWeaver, StorySpace, etc. Or that you edit video, mix music. Or that you have some programming or scripting experience. I will encourage people to consider the relationship of programming and writing, code and writing, but the practices of writing digital media do yet tell us what technology we should use to make work. There will never be a simple answer to the question, \\\'What tools do I use to write and publish?\\\' There never has been. It will be up to you to find a technology that suits your work and with which you are comfortable.
Assignments and Grading
There will be a number of mini-project assignments early on in the course. You will be expected to document these and your final projects on the course wiki.
Written or recorded work for the course will relate chiefly to the final project that you will be required to complete. I expect you to keep copies of composed writings and/or found source texts, notes, (the equivalent of) sketches, maquettes, early versions, etc. in an appropriate form (ideally online and accessible to me, other class members, and other people in the writing digital media community). Make backups of anything that is digitally recorded.
For your final project you will also make a web-presentable introduction to the work with good documentation: the project\\\'s aims, techniques, claims for its artistic/aesthetic significance, instructions for users, limitations, plans/projections for future development, etc.
Readings and Required Texts
Required books (selected to be stocked for the class by Brown bookshop):
- Aarseth, Espen. Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.
- Funkhouser, Christopher T. Prehistoric Digital Poetry: An Archaeology of Forms, 1959-1995. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2007.
- Hayles, N. Katherine. Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary. Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 2008.
The above book is as close as we will get to having a \\\'text book.\\\' It includes a copy of a CD version of the Electronic Literature Collection, volume 1 (http://collection.eliterature.org), one of the first major collections of representative examples of \\\'Electronic Literature.\\\' You should become familiar with many of these works. The book also has and excellent website (http://newhorizons.eliterature.org/index.php) with much additional material.
- McCaffery, Steve. Prior to Meaning: The Protosemantic and Poetics. Evanstown, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2001.
- Morris, Adalaide, and Thomas Swiss, eds. New Media Poetics: Contexts, Technotexts, and Theories. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006.
- Wardrip-Fruin, Noah, and Nick Monfort, eds. The New Media Reader. Includes CD-ROM. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003.
Recommended:
- Reas, Casey, and Ben Fry. Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007.