January 24, 2008 Archives

Hello, and welcome!  This website, http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336, is your main resource for the course.

If you look at the top of this page and click the "Outline" tab, you'll see the list of all the readings and due dates. 

If you're ever feel unsure of what to do on a particular assignment, or you're working ahead and you would like for me to flesh out a particular page, just send me an e-mail or post a comment on the blog, and I'll tend to it as soon as I can.

For every assigned text in the course that gets its own item on the Outline page, including an article, a section from a book, or some other document, I am asking every student to use the RRRR sequence contribute to an online discussion.

First we will start out simply posting a comment to the appropriate page on the course website.

But once everyone has had some time to experiment with the SHU weblog system, I'm asking for everyone to employ the following four-step process, designed to prepare for a productive online discussion.

Key Concept:

Schemata

I've set up the course with four main touchstones.

oral -> manuscript -> print -> digital
These eras overlap; all modes of communication continue to exist to the present day, but their function in society changes.

Oral Culture
  • personal (one-to-one; one[-speaker]-to-many[-listeners])
  • interactive
  • memory and improvisation (the agora & the courts)
  • limitation: the sound of the human voice
Manuscript Culture
  • private (one-to-one; several-to-several)
  • contemplative
  • scarcity and fidelity (scriptoria and the church)
  • limitations: access to writing materials; access to written documents (for study or copying); hundreds of hours of precision labor for each book
Print Culture
  • public (one-to-many)
  • compartmentized
  • accuracy and efficiency (standardized manufacture, standardized education, university culture)
  • limitations: cheap paper only lasts a few centuries; competition favors authors with mass audiences; mistakes harder to correct
Digital Culture
  • impersonal (many-to-many)
  • ephemeral
  • immediacy and interactivity (erosion of privacy, erosion of print culture borders)
  • limitations: spam & crap; competing notions of "ownership" (file-sharing and digital rights)

Recent Comments

Erica Gearhart on Aarseth (Ch5): I think I am understanding Aarseth a little bit mo
Tiffany Gilbert on Jerz & Jerz: Ah! I love interactive fiction! It's back!
Erica Gearhart on Jerz & Jerz: This video was a helpful tool to people new to int
Sean Maiolo on ELO Collection: At first I hated it. But then...
Jessie Krehlik on ELO Collection: Electronic Literature makes me smile, because it s
Chelsea Oliver on Aarseth (Ch 2-4): Blah Blah Blah http://blogs.setonhill.edu/ChelseaO
Megan Seigh on Aarseth (Ch 2-4): Take a chance on me interactive fiction. http://b
Maddie Gillespie on Aarseth (Ch 2-4): Everything is a part of the circle of life = we're
Tiffany Gilbert on ELO Collection: http://blogs.setonhill.edu/TiffanyGilbert/2010/04/
Tiffany Gilbert on Aarseth (Ch 2-4): I disagree with Aarseth. Non linear text is presen
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