UNIVERSITY 302

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A team-taught course that addresses the nature of information technologies and their influence on culture.

Instructors:

G. Anthony Gorry, 316 Lovett Hall, 527-6054, tony@rice.edu

Albert Van Helden, 527 Fondren, 527-4947, helden@rice.edu

Werner Kelber, 325 Anderson Hall, 527-4995, kelber@rice.edu

Stanley Reiser, 300 Jones Library, UT Medical School, 792-5140, sreiser@heart.med.uth.tmc.edu

This course focuses on orality, the manuscript culture, the print revolution and the electronic communication which culminates in high-speed powers of computation and simulation, and the creation of global information structures. The influence of these modes of communication on the following issues will be explored: imaging and visualization, memory, self and community, censorship and social control, authority, science and medicine, education, nationalism and ethnicity, political rhetoric and ideology, and virtual reality.

The final grade will be made up as follows:

Class Participation: 30%
Midterm:15%
Paper/Project: 30%
Final Exam (self-scheduled): 25%

TEXT BOOKS FOR SALE IN CAMPUS STORE

Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London and New York: Routledge, 1995 (reprint).

Susan Sontag, On Photography. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977

William Gibson, Neuromancer. New York: Ace Books, 1994.

REQUIRED READINGS IN COURSE PACKET

Frances A. Yates, The Art of Memory (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1966):
chap. 1: "The Three Latin Sources for the Classical Art of Memory" (pp.1-26);
chap. 2: "The Art of Memory in Greece: Memory and the Soul" (pp. 27-49).

H. Wheeler Robinson, Corporate Personality in Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1964):
pp. 1-20: "The Hebrew Conception of Corporate Personality"

David R. Olson, The World on Paper (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994):
"Representing the Mind: The Origins of Subjectivity" (pp. 234-250).

Kenneth J. Gergen, The Saturated Self. Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life (New York: Basic Books, 1991):
chap. 2: "From the Romantic to the Modern Vision of Self" (pp. 18-47);
chap. 3: "Social Saturation and the Populated Self" (pp. 48-80).

Gerald Gardner,The Censorship Papers (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company,1987):
Introduction (pp. xv-xxiv);
chap. 1: "Adventures" (pp. 1-8);
chap.2: "Musicals" (pp. 9-25);
chap. 3: "Westerns" (pp. 26-37);
chap. 11: "The Marx Brothers" (pp. 111-120).

Martin Luther, "To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation Concerning the Reform of the Christian Estate." Luthers Works, Vol. 44 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press): pp. 123-157.

Stanley J. Reiser, Medicine and the Reign of Technology (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1978; 1995 reprint):
chap. 2: "The stethoscope and the detection of pathology by sound" (pp. 23-44);
chap. 5: "The translation of physiological actions into the languages of machines" (pp. 91-121);
chap. 9: "Selection and evaluation of evidence in medicine" (pp. 174-195).

Mary Alice White, "Information and Imagery Education" in What Curriculum in the Information Age? (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1987): pp. 41-66.

Gale Stokes, "Cognition, Consciousness, and Nationalism," in Ethnic Studies, 10 (1973): 27-42.

David Zarefsky, Lincoln, Douglas, and Slavery (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1990): pp. 233-239;

Don C. Seitz, Lincoln the Politician (Coward-McCann,1931), pp. 116-136

Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address

Lois J. Einhorn, Abraham Lincoln the Orator (Greenwood, Press, 1992): chap. 6: "Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: Immediate Failure and Lasting Success" (pp. 92-112).

SCHEDULE OF CLASS SESSIONS, TOPICS, AND READINGS

January 13: Introduction

Viewing of Video

[January 20: M.L. King Univ. Holiday]

January 27: Orality: A Diachronic Perspective

Reading: Ong, Orality and Literacy
Viewing of Video: Guimba the Tyrant

February 3: Imaging and Visualization

Reading: Sontag, On Photography

February 10: Memory

Reading: Yates, The Art of Memory, chaps. 1 and 2

February 17: Self and Community

Reading: Robinson, "The Hebrew Conception of Corporate Personality";
David R. Olson, "Representing the Mind: The Origins of Subjectivity";
Gergen, The Saturated Self, chaps. 2 and 3

February 24: Censorship and Social Control

Reading: Gardner, The Censorship Papers, Introduction plus chaps. 1, 2, 3, and 11
mid-term exam, to be arranged

[March 3: Midterm Recess]

March 10: Authority

Reading: Luther, "To the Christian Nobility"

March 17: Transformation of Knowledge in Science and Medicine

Reading: Reiser, Medicine and the Reign of Technology, chaps. 2, 5, and 9

March 24: Education

Reading: White, "Information and Imagery Education"

March 3l: Nationalism and Ethnicity

Reading: Stokes, "Cognition, Consciousness, and Nationalism"

April 7: Political Rhetoric and Ideology

Reading: Zarefsky, Lincoln, Douglas, and Slavery, pp. 233-239;
Seitz, Lincoln the Politician, pp. 116-136;
Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address;
Einhorn, Abraham Lincoln the Orator, chap. 6

April 14: Virtual Reality

Reading: Gibson, Neuromancer

April 21: Summation