Unit One: Groundwork
January 16 Week One: Introduction / toward a nonlinear, nonunified theory of texts and technologies
Introductions, course overview—course narrative arc and the material forms of argument, exposition, creation and interrogation with which we will engage.
Read in advance: Luis Borges “In the Library of Babel” (1941) https://maskofreason.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/the-library-of-babel-by-jorge-luis-borges.pdf
*for a small biographical note on Borges and this short story see: https://libraryofbabel.info/About.html
In class we will watch and discuss Alain Resnais’s 1956 short film “Toute la Mémoiré du Monde”
Introduction to Assignments: Textual Practice, A Theory of Text Technologies: A Digital Portfolio (A theoretical introduction drawing from texts read this semester and a curated, captioned photo documentation of your own renderings from classmate-led textual practice demos potentially using the Scalar platform for presentation). “Literary Text Biography” a textual material analysis of a work of literature from a prepared list that appears on Week Seven. There’s something for everyone here!)
For keywords see at the end of the syllabus some terms listed under the TP assignment description. Some that I list here we shall need to add to the list and generate definitions. Namely, excerpts from Heidegger’s “The Question Concerning Technology”, Roland Barthes on “text/tissu,” and Jacques Derrida on “text” vs McLuhan from Gutenberg Galaxy: text, technology, textuality, paratext (Genette “the verbal and visual accessories that accompany texts including covers, titles pages, prefaces, and TOC) work, book, reader.
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