ENGL 90717 - Media in America: Technology, Aesthetics

Institution:

University of Notre Dame

Subject:

English

Description:

The study of media - including novels, technologies, processes, and social forms - has been changing the way humanities disciplines conceive of the work they do, and reconfiguring the fields of American literary study. Through the shared texts of media philosophy and the now-canonical works of interdisciplinary media studies, a common critical vocabulary has emerged for discussing media across disciplines, and for situating American literature within that tradition. Moreover, institutional investment in humanities and social science computing is producing new forms of scholarly collaboration and critical practice that demand a reconsideration of established models of intellectual production. Opportunities for critical thought and computational innovation circulate around the interdisciplinary cluster of studies related to media. Media thus form crucial objects and concepts through which to observe potential futures of literary study, the structures of the disciplines that inform current approaches to media, and in some cases, the reassertion of disciplinary autonomy in the face of these transformations. This course will examine the current debates in media theory and media studies in the context of a compact survey of twentieth-century American fiction. Readings will cover four primary areas of research: media aesthetics, media studies, communication, and new media. Each cluster of topics will involve the reading and re-reading of a central text for imagining media in twentieth-century America: these include works by James, Dos Passos, Baldwin, Highsmith, Danielewski, and Jackson. This broad range of readings is designed to make media a rich and multidimensional topic of inquiry, and to ground any discussion of the role of computing and technological innovation in twenty-first century scholarship in a long history of thinking about media as an object of philosophical investigation. The semester will conclude with a critical study of digital humanities programs and projects throughout the country, followed by a mini-conference in which students present either a media analysis of one of our literary texts, or a collaborative project putting the tools and critical practices of the digital humanities to work in a critique of modern media theory.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.nd.edu

Phone Number:

(574) 631-5000

Regional Accreditation:

North Central Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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