Bradley Dilger, Spring 2010
STAR# 47728: Quad Cities, section TQ1, WIU-QC Moline, room TBD.
STAR# 47727: Macomb, section 200, Tillman Hall 301D.
Monday, 6:00–8:30p.
In the Quad Cities, the course is taught primarily via videoconferencing (CODEC). I will make at least two trips to the QC during the semester (tentatively Mon 2/1, Thu 2/18, Mon 3/8, Thu 3/25, Mon 4/5, and Thu 4/29).
What does it mean to write in an age where, as W. J. T Mitchell observes, writing is just another stream of bits flowing through a cable, projected on a screen, or even moved through the air? How can the literary and rhetorical approaches of English studies be applied to artifacts which traditionalists would consider “not part of English” because they are not books or essays? How can the methods of established disciplines such as cinema studies help us understand other kinds of moving pictures, as Lev Manovich claims? What are the implications, for “old” and “new” media, of the epistemological shift Greg Ulmer traces in contemporary culture—from orality to literacy to electracy? Why, indeed, do we use the term “new media” to describe networked writing, electronic gaming, digital cinema, and other forms—weren’t all media “new media” at one time or another?
While our focus is rhetorical, poetic, and hermeneutic analysis of new media texts, and intensive study of new media theory, we will also engage the production of new media. For example, we’ll discuss our texts online, we’ll make web pages, we’ll manipulate photos with Adobe Photoshop, we’ll play computer games which allow extension and creation of virtual worlds, and, time permitting, we’ll produce short films or interactive media. However, this work will be geared towards understanding the texts and theories we read, the cultural significance of these media, and their effect on established forms and genres—not mastery of any given software application or production skill. While I will certainly encourage you to cultivate such abilities on your own, in this course production is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
If you purchase texts online, use ISBN numbers to ensure proper editions. I expect to add one or two more books.
Bradley Dilger,
Associate Professor of English,
Western Illinois U
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