Note: The online version of the syllabus is always the "official" version; the printed version I distribute on the first day of classes will quickly become outdated as the online version develops.

1. Who, When & Where
2. Course Objectives
3. Course Format
4. Course Requirements
   1. Attendance
   2. Participation
   3. Text
5. Grading
   1. What Gets Graded
   2. What the Grades Mean
   3. Submission Policies
6. Official University Statements
   1. Disability Statement
   2. Academic Dishonesty
7. Course Outline

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1. When, Where & Who

• MW: 3-4:15PM, A402
• Dennis G. Jerz
  • (The shorter address you see in the SHU directory will also work.)
• St. Joseph Hall 403
• Phone: x1909 or 724.830.1909
• Office Hours
  • Mon 12N-1PM
  • Tue 3:30-4:30
  • Wed 11-12PM
  • Also by appointment
• SHU Cancellation line: 724.830.1000

3. Course Objectives

As an advanced English seminar course, EL 309 is an in-depth investigation of a topic in literary studies. It is an opportunity for students to demonstrate the literary skills they have developed so far, in an intense, intellectually stimulating peer environment. The official catalog description is very open-ended:

Topics vary from term to term; emphasis is on upper-level (junior and senior) in-depth study; e.g., Medieval Studies, Social Themes in the Novel, Austen and the Brontes, Development of the British Novel, Victorian Literature, Twentieth Century Studies. Prerequisites: EL 150 and two other English courses.

The "Media Aesthetics" special topic asks students to engage intellectually with a wide range of philosophical, literary, and critical works, in order to develop a theoretical base for the examination of emerging issues. (See "Course Description," above.) After first examining classical perspectives on traditional media, students will progress to contemporary perspectives on both traditional and new media. Students will:

• Recognize the elements of composition and structure in the media under consideration.
• Use a variety of critical approaches to understand particular media.
• Analyze elements of media productions in terms of style and meaning.
• Evaluate media aesthetics (i.e., make judgments about the value of products in various media)
• Conduct independent research on media.

4. Course Format

The course is a seminar, which means that peer interaction (both in the classroom and via weblogs) will be the dominant mode of instruction. Students will be expected to apply their advanced critical thinking skills to the examination of assigned primary and secondary texts, to formulate and execute a research plans, to document and organize their findings, and to present them in an intellectually stimulating manner.

5. Course Requirements

In a small seminar, the absence or non-participation of even one student is sorely felt by the rest of the class -- even if that absence has been "excused" by the administration. (An "excused" absence is one for which I promptly receive a note or an e-mail from Dr. Gawelek, or one which has been cleared with me in advance.)

5.1 Attendance

Students who miss class for any reason -- excused or not -- will be expected to do make-up work covering the material discussed in class. (Please get the notes from your classmates, not from me.)

Students with perfect attendance will get a 4% bonus added to their final grade. (Students who promptly make up their excused absences are eligible to retain the bonus.)

• First unexcused absence: Forfeit "Mercy Bump" (my term for raising a borderline final grade)
• Second unexcused absence: Penalty: 1/3 letter grade
• Third unexcused absence: Penalty: 1/3 letter grade
• Fourth unexcused absence: Penalty: another 2/3 letter grade
• Fifth unexcused absence: Penalty: another letter grade
• Sixth unexcused absence and beyond: Failure. Whatever final grade you get will be multiplied by the fraction of classes you attended (essentially a failure).

Excessive unexcused late arrivals or early departures, disruptive behavior, or unpreparedness may compound in my grade book to the point where I treat them as absences. (I'll warn you once.)

If you are absent from class without an excuse approved by the dean of students, on a day when a major assignment is due, the assignment will be counted an extra day late.

Seton Hill University has made a commitment to providing every student with the resources that he or she needs in order to succeed. A formal request for special accommodation must come from the administration. In a pinch I will do my best to accommodate you when asked, but a long-term strategy to help you succeed is not something that I am trained to provide

5.2 Participation

Students will be expected to come to class prepared, and to contribute actively (i.e. not just when I call on you) while present.

• Keep up on the readings.
• Bring your copies of the texts to be discussed (including printouts of online documents).
• In class discussions, demonstrate your awareness of what your classmates have been posting to their online journals. Refer to and build upon specific points that your classmates made.
• Ask your peers to elaborate, to come up with examples, to point out flaws in your thinking, to come to your defense.
• Take a stand on an intellectually complex issue, and defend it. Push your argument to the breaking point.
• Identify weaknesses in your own arguments; identify strengths in opposing views.

5.3 Texts

Texts

Texts	EL 309 (M & W)
Required Purchase	Utopian Entrepreneur (Mediaworks Pamphlets) Brenda Laurel; Paperback; Buy New: $10.47 Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace Janet H. Murray; Paperback; Buy New: $21.95 Rethinking Media Change : The Aesthetics of Transition David Thorburn & Jenkins; Hardcover; Buy New: $34.74
Optional	The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Short Stories Oscar Wilde; Mass Market Paperback; Buy New: $4.95 While purchasing the physical book is optional, the text is required; for those of you who don't mind reading a whole novel as an e-text, a download is available.
Download	On the days when we discuss online readings, bring your own printout to class. (I reserve the right to conduct spot checks and give pop quizzes.)
Library E-Reserve	Depending on availability, certain texts will only be available for consultation through the library's e-reserve system. (I will let you know when this is the case.)

6. Grading

6.1 What Gets Graded?

Paper 1	10%
Paper 2 Thesis/Bibliography: 5% Oral Presentation: 5% Final Draft: 10%	20%
Seminar Presentations (3) Weeks 1-4 Weeks 5-8 Weeks 9-12	20%
Weblog (Online Journal) Portfolio I Portfolio II Portfolio III	30%
Participation	20%

6.2 What the Grades Mean

A	93.0% to 100%
A-	90.0% to 92.9%
B+	87.0% to 89.9%
B	83.0% to 86.9%
B-	80.0% to 82.9%
C+	77.0% to 79.9%
C	73.0% to 76.9%
C-	70.0% to 72.9%
D+	67.0% to 69.9%
D	63.0% to 66.9%
D-	60.0% to 62.9%
F	59.9% to 0%

6.3 Deadline Policies

Papers are either on time, delayed, or late.

On Time

Papers that are ready when I collect them at the beginning of class receive a 1/3 letter grade "Decorum Bonus." Minor annoyances such as loose pages, smudged printouts or crumpled corners may forfeit the bonus.

Delayed

If your submission is not ready when I collect the others, the assignment not only loses the decorum bonus, it provisionally drops one letter grade.

There are two ways you can lessen this penalty:

1. If you can get your completed paper to me before I go home for the day, I will probably waive the penalty (but I won't restore the bonus).
2. If you e-mail me the assignment to me by midnight, and submit a completed printout by the next working day, I will lessen the penalty to 1/3 of a letter grade (but again, no bonus, so that's still 2/3 of a letter grade less than what an on-time paper would have earned)

Late

If you can get your late paper to me within a week, I'll accept it without further penalty. After a week, late papers earn half credit; at the two-week mark, the assignment will be recorded as a zero.

(In the event of a severe illness or prolonged emergency, I will of course consider alternative arrangements.)

If you are absent from or very late to class (without an approved excuse) on a day when a major assignment is due, the assignment will be counted as late.

7. University Statements

Disability

If you have a disability that may require consideration by the instructor, you should contact the Coordinator of Disabled Student Services at 724-838-4295 or bassi@setonhill.edu.  It is recommended that this be accomplished by the second week of class.  It is not necessary to disclose to your instructor the nature of your disability.  If you need accommodations for successful participation in class activities prior to your appointment at the Disabled Students Services Office, you should offer information in writing which includes suggestions for assistance in participating in and completing class assignments.

Academic Dishonesty

Seton Hill University expects that all its students will practice academic honesty and ethical conduct. The University regards plagiarism, cheating on examinations, falsification of papers, non-sanctioned collaboration, and misuse or illegal use of library material, computer material, or any other material, published or unpublished, as violations of academic honesty.

8. Course Outline

Week 1	EL 309 (M & W)
12 Jan	Introduction Definitions: "Media"; "Aesthetics"; "Studies in Literature"; "Advanced"
13 Jan
14 Jan	Introduction to Weblogs Read: Pygmalion (a handout containing further links to verse, prose, images, and commentary) "Cathedral" (bring printouts and short responses to class) I've been informed that the above link doesn't work... try the cached copies at The Wayback Machine or Google. Update, 21 Jan: These links are also dead now. (You did print out the story like I asked you to, right?) Presentations (2): "Introduction to the Weblog Format" "Getting the Most out of Your Academic Weblog" -- Julie Young
15 Jan
16 Jan
Week 2	EL 309 (M & W)
19 Jan	Take the Day On (No Class -- But lots of reading is due Wednesday, so start early!)
20 Jan
21 Jan	Classical Aesthetics Read: "Plato's Aesthetics" & "Aristotle's Aesthetics" (good basic intros) Plato ("The Allegory of the Cave") Aristotle ("Poetics". The whole thing [about 15 printed pages] is valuable reading, but focus on sections 1-4, 7, 9, 13-15, 22, 25 & 26) After class, blog: Apply Plato to "Cathedral" (move beyond the obvious blindness parallels) Apply Aristotle to "Pygmalion and Galatea" Presentation: "Critical Blogging on Aesthetics in ‘Cathedral'"
22 Jan
23 Jan
Week 3	EL 309 (M & W)
26 Jan	Manuscript  and Print Culture Read: TBA; Thorburn and Jenkins (selections TBA) Seminar Presentations (2): Rachel Crump; John Haddad Choose two or three of Punctuation & Spelling Illumination & Design Binding & Archiving Reproduction & Economics The Medieval Reader Research and present on chief differences between medieval and modern book culture Preview Wednesday's blogging assignment Blog (Due Wednesday) On your own, investigate further some issue relating aesthetics to some aspect of English studies we have already touched on, and write a richly-linked blog entry (including reference to assigned course materials, peer blogging, and your own online or offline research) that teaches your readers about one thing you learned. (Avoid anything that even hints of "Here's what I'm supposed to write" -- that will kill you reader's interest right away.)
27 Jan
28 Jan	Preview of Paper 1 Preview of Chaucer Read: Canterbury Tales "General Prologue" (bring printout of this text, or some other version, to class) Scan Klein's Lecture Notes on The Canterbury Tales Allen's discussion/study questions on The Canterbury Tales Seminar Presentations (3): Chaucer and the English Language Structure of The Canterbury Tales Textual History of The Canterbury Tales (the physical documents)
29 Jan
30 Jan
Week 4	EL 309 (M & W)
02 Feb	Canterbury Tales "The Miller's Tale" & "The Nun's Priest Tale" Presentation: "Aesthetic Distance" (applied to our Chaucer readings) Presentation: "Art for Teaching the Medieval Christian"
03 Feb
04 Feb	Canterbury Tales: "The Wife of Bath" (Prologue & Tale) Presentation "Reception Theory" (applied to our Chaucer selections) (selected tales TBA)
05 Feb
06 Feb
Week 5	EL 309 (M & W)
09 Feb	Developing Print Culture [Class cancelled.]
10 Feb
11 Feb	Presentations (apply Thorburn & Jenkins, below) The Book as an Experimental Medium The Aesthetics of Book Culture Read: Thorburn & Jenkins #1 "Introduction" #3 "Historicizing Media in Transition" #8 "Historical Perspectives on the Book and Information Technology" In class: blogging time Read: Throrburn & Jenkins (selection TBA) #4 "Re-Newing Old Technologies" #6 "Books are Dead, Long Live Books" #7 "Help or Hindrance: The History of the Book and Electronic Media" Due: Blogging Portfolio I Due: Paper 1 Thesis & Works Cited
12 Feb
13 Feb	Recommended: As You Like It 10:30am
Week 6	EL 309 (M & W)
16 Feb	Criticism and the Culture of Aesthetics Presentation: "Useful Art vs. Aestheticism" Read: Pope, "An Essay on Criticism" Part I, Part II, Part III Wilde's Introduction to The Picture of Dorian Gray
17 Feb
18 Feb	Aesthetics in As You Like It Due: By today, post a well-thought, richly-linked blog entry applying course material covered so far to Seton Hill University's production of As You Like It [Paper deadline pushed back until Friday.]
19 Feb
20 Feb	Due: Paper 1
Break	EL 309 (M & W)
23 Feb	Spring Break
24 Feb	Spring Break
25 Feb	Spring Break
26 Feb	Spring Break
27 Feb	Spring Break
Week 7	EL 309 (M & W)
01 Mar	Discuss: Wilde, Picture of Dorian Gray Ch 1-10 Presentations (2)
02 Mar
03 Mar	Discuss: Wilde, Picture of Dorian Gray (All) Presentations (2)
04 Mar
05 Mar
Week 8	EL 309 (M & W)
08 Mar	Printing Press to E-Text Presentations "Hypertext Factions: Usability vs. Design" "The 'Elegant Hack' -- Beauty in Geek Culture" Hackers in the Mainstream Media Terminology: Hacker vs. Cracker The "Elegant Hack" Pranks at MIT: "One Ring to Rule the Dome"; "Robot Rights Protest"; Post-It Art) The Command Line Interface (CLI) vs Graphic User Interface (GUI, or WIMP) Demo: Create 20 new directories in Windows Demo: Create 20 new directories in Unix Geek praise of the "maximalist" text editor emacs: "It is written in Lisp, which is the only computer language that is beautiful. It is colossal, and yet it only edits straight ASCII text files, which is to say, no fonts, no boldface, no underlining. In other words, the engineer-hours that, in the case of Microsoft Word, were devoted to features like mail merge, and the ability to embed feature-length motion pictures in corporate memoranda, were, in the case of emacs, focused with maniacal intensity on the deceptively simple-seeming problem of editing text. If you are a professional writer--i.e., if someone else is getting paid to worry about how your words are formatted and printed--emacs outshines all other editing software in approximately the same way that the noonday sun does the stars. It is not just bigger and brighter; it simply makes everything else vanish. For page layout and printing you can use TeX: a vast corpus of typesetting lore written in C and also available on the Net for free." -- In the Beginning was the Command Line Yes, Geeks value clarity, but they also enjoy complixity for the sake of complexity. See: l33t 5p33k for n00bs A Grandchild's Guide to Using Grandpa's Computer PICK UP AX is a play focusing on geek burnout and rebirth (written long before the dot-com meltdown). Colossal Cave Adventure and its imitators, including Zork, introduced a generation of young people to computer programming. Hackers and Painters: "Along with composers, architects, and writers, what hackers and painters are trying to do is make good things. They're not doing research per se, though if in the course of trying to make good things they discover some new technique, so much the better." Hacker Manifesto Read: Bush, "As We May Think" Jerz, "(Meme)X Marks the Spot"
09 Mar
10 Mar	Presentations: "Computer-Assisted Textual Analysis" "Nonlinear Narrative" Read: Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck (pp 1-64)
11 Mar
12 Mar
Week 9	EL 309 (M & W)
15 Mar	Presentations: "Digital Environments: Procedural, Participatory, Spatial, Encyclopedic" (see p. 71 & ff) "Querying Murray's Aesthetic of Immersion" Read: Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck (pp 65-125)
16 Mar
17 Mar	Presentations: "Querying Murray's Aesthetic of Agency" "Querying Murray's Aesthetic of Transformation" Read: Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck (pp 126-182) Due: Blog Portfolio II
18 Mar
19 Mar
Week 10	EL 309 (M & W)
22 Mar	Authorship in a Digital Age Presentations: "Applying Vladimir Propp's Morphology of the Folktale" "Extending Murray" (examine her theories in light of recent developments in technology and genre, such as TiVo, flash mobs, fictional weblogs, fictionalized "reality TV", etc.) "Murray Knows the Real World" "Thank You for Giving me Control TiVo!" Read: Murray (185-272) Preview: "Storytelling in Computer Games" (Full text and MP3 audio archive of a 2-hr academic panel)
23 Mar
24 Mar	Read: Murray (273-284) Jerz, "Tasking Ariel" In Class: Video (TBA) Blog: Apply course material to issues raised by the video
25 Mar
26 Mar
Week 11	EL 309 (M & W)
29 Mar	Games and Simulations In Class: Download the file "http://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/Package1.exe" (right click, save it to your networked drive, then click on it) "Pick up the Phone Booth and Die"; "9:05"; "For a Change" Preview of "Galatea" and blog assignment due Wednesday (refresher: Pygmalion) Due: Richly-linked blog entry responding to issues raised by Murray, Adams, Jerz , and last week's video. Julie Young: "Deleting Unnecessary Words in IF" Brendan Meany: "The Visual Concept of Gaming"
30 Mar
31 Mar	Presentations: "Hamlet on the Command Line: A Critique of Robin Johnson's Hamlet Game" "Current Issues in Digital Aesthetics" For the gamers in the class: "User Mods and the Culture of Amateur Aesthetics" Blog: Your reaction to playing interactive fiction A thoughtful analysis of Emily Short's "Galatea" (Spend at least 30 minutes playing it several times over, to get different endings; avoid summary but do refer to and contextualize specific game events, quoting from the text where appropriate, since there are about 40 endings and your classmates and I may not have seen the ones you found)
1 Apr
2 Apr
Week 12	EL 309 (M & W)
5 Apr	Laurel, Utopian Entrepreneur Presentation: "Gender in Kid Culture" Due: Paper 2 Preliminary Thesis & Bibliography
6 Apr
7 Apr	Easter Break
8 Apr	Easter Break
9 Apr	Easter Break
Week 12 (cont'd)	EL 309 (M & W)
12 Apr	Easter Break
13 Apr	Easter Break
14 Apr	Laurel, Utopian Entrepreneur Additional readings: TBA Presentation: "Posthuman Aesthetics"
15 Apr
16 Apr
Week 13	EL 309 (M & W)
19 Apr	Formal Presentations (An oral version of your final paper, with class handout & Works Cited) If time permits: IF Programming Exercise (a self-extracting .zip file -- create "I:/IF" if you haven't done so already, download this file, and click on it.)
20 Apr
21 Apr	Formal Presentations, contd
22 Apr
23 Apr
Week 14	EL 309 (M & W)
26 Apr	Due: Blog Portfolio Remember, your annotations are very important to me. Four richly linked entries (one can be a repeat from a previous portfolio) 1 on "Utopian Entrepreneur" 1 on "Hamlet on the Holodeck" 2 more on topics of your choice One additional entry on media aesthetics as applied to blogging. (I'll look very closely at this one -- make it outstanding... think of it as a take-home final essay question. Demonstrate your ability to organize and apply the material we covered in class.) Two peer blog entries on which you have commented. Instructor/Course Evaluation Video: The Red Violin
27 Apr
28 Apr	Video: The Red Violin Discussion
29 Apr
30 Apr	Due: Final Paper Draft
Finals	EL 309 (M & W)
3 May
4 May
5 May
6 May
7 May

 

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