New Media and the Aesthetics of the New
ENGL 236 - Spring 2004, Alan Liu
The presentation and writing assignments in this graduate seminar are geared toward allowing students to produce a quality research project.
Scouting Report
Weight:
20% of final grade Due:
Various dates
Each student will present one 15-minute "scouting report" on some
experimental literary, artistic, critical, theoretical, or other work that he/she finds highly interesting and that bears
on "new media," the "new," or other themes of the course. The report should show-and-tell or demo some
of the work, and also isolate what the student thinks is of special interest.
Examples of the sorts of work that might be scouted:
A work of new media art, literature, video, music, or film (online, CD-ROM,
or diskette). The following are instances of new media art and "electronic
literature" indexes that might be explored::
An installation, performance, reading, film, conference or some other event
(there must be some documentation or notes of the work that can be exhibited
in class)
Project
Weight:
60% of final grade Due:
Monday, June 7
The project for the course may take one of four forms:
Essay (normative length: 10-14 pp., plus notes and works cited list).
Online project (e.g., Web site, hypertext work, multimedia work, database
work, programming work, etc.). The work can be a research site or a "creative"
work (though creative works must incorporate research
or theoretical content in some explicit way).
A hybrid online/essay project--for example, a shorter essay mounted on the
Web complemented by links to online resources, an annotated bibliography,
and/or a collection of quotations from relevant theory, etc.
Other. A project that utilizes media or forms not mentioned above.
Prospectus for Project
Weight:
10% of final grade Due:
posted to the class Web discussion forum by May 12
The project prospectus should be 600-900 words in length. In addition to narrative
exposition, it may include an outline of structure or argument. There must also
be a preliminary bibliography. The prospectus will be graded for substance combined
with effectiveness as a prospectus. (Prospectus- or proposal-writing is one
of the standard genres of writing in the profession. See my Tips for Writing Prospectuses.) Prospectuses should be
posted to the class Web discussion forum <http://english.ucsb.edu/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=forum;f=10>.
Each student will be assigned another student's project prospectus to critique.
Critiques should be rigorous, but should also be constructive in spirit. Critiques must be posted
to the class Web discussion forum <http://english.ucsb.edu/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=forum;f=10>
in "response" to particular prospectus being discussed. (That is,
try to utilize the "threaded" structure of the discussion forum to
keep our various conversations organized.)
transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu
directed by: Alan Liu
site
developed by the transcriptions team
code by: Eric Weitzel
pictures by: Bo Kinloch
