I. CORE CONCEPTS 

• Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (MIT Press, 1994), 3-47. 

• Henry Jenkins, What Everyone Should Know About Popular Culture (Work in Progress)

W Sept. 15 The Concept of Commodity (Raman) 

• Bernard Gendron, "Theodor Adorno Meets the Cadillacs," in Tania Modleski ed. Studies in Entertainment: Critical Approaches to Mass Culture (Madison, University Of Wisconsin Press, 1986) 18- 36.

• Susan Douglas, "Popular Culture and Populist Technology: The Amateur Operators, 1906-1912," in Inventing American Broadcasting, 1899-1922 (Baltimore, London: John Hopkins University Press) pp. 187-215. 

II. MEDIA IN TRANSITION 

W Sept. 22 Orality (Jenkins) 

• Walter J. Ong, "Some psychodynamics of orality," in Orality and Literacy: the technologizing of the word (London; New York: Methuen, 1982) pp. 31-77. 

• Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, "Some Features of Print Culture," in The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984) pp. 42-91
• additional reading will be distributed in class on 9/22

W Sept 29  Acting Workshop (Sonenberg)

M Oct. 4 Theatre and Theatricality (Henderson) 

• Jonas Barish, "Introductory," "The Platonic Foundation," The Antitheatrical Prejudice.  (Berkeley: U. California Press, 1981) pp. 1-2; pp. 5-15
• Russ McDonald, "Performances, Playhouses, and Players," The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare: An Introduction with Documents.  (Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press, 1996) pp. 40-45; 58-59; 74-81; 96-99

 

 

Howard P. Segal, "The Technological Utopians," in Joseph J. Corn, Imagining Tomorrow: History, Technology and the American Future, (Cambridge, London: MIT Press, 1986) pp.119- 136. 

Ben Singer, "Modernity, Hyperstimulus, and the Rise of Popular Sensationalism," in Leo Charney and Vanessa R. Schwartz (ed.) Cinema and the Invention of Modern Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995) pp. 72-99. 

Tom Gunning, "An Aesthetic of Astonishment: Early Film and the (In)Credulous Spectator," in Linda Williams (ed.) Viewing Positions: Ways of Seeing Film (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1995) pp. 114-133.oward P. Segal, "The Technological Utopians," in Joseph J. Corn, Imagining Tomorrow: History, Technology and the American Future, (Cambridge, London: MIT Press, 1986) pp.119- 136. 

W Oct. 6 Photography and Modernity (Jenkins) Second Paper Due *

• Walter Benjamin, "The work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," in Illuminations (New York, 1969) pp. 217-251

• Michael Budd, "The German Film Industry and the Making of Caligari," in Mike Budd (ed.) The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1990), pp. 8-25

M Oct. 18 Movies and Music (Marty Marks)

• Martin Marks, "Music and the Silent Film" in THE OXFORD HISTORY OF WORLD CINEMA Edited by Geoffrey Nowell- Smith. Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 183-192. 
• Claudia Gorbman, "Why Music? The Sound Film and Its Spectator." in UNHEARD MELODIES: NARRATIVE FILM MUSIC Indian University Press, 1987. pp.53-69. 
• Aaron Copland, "Film Music." in WHAT TO LISTEN FOR IN MUSIC.Revised edition. 1957.(McGraw-Hill was the publisher in 1957) pp. 152-147.

W Oct. 20 Models of the Digital Revolution (Jenkins)
 

• Janet Murray, selection from Hamlet on the Holodeck, (New York: The Free Press, 1997) p. 273-283 [ISBN: 0-684-82723-9]
• George Gilder, selection from Life after Television, (New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1994) 35-49. 
• John Katz, "The Birth of a Digital Nation," Media Rants: Postpolitics in the Digital Nation (San Francisco: HardWired, 1997). p. 50-58.
• John Perry Barlow, "The Declaration of Independence in Cyberspace" http://members.aye.net/~hippie/barlow/barlowci.htm

 

• George Landow, "Reconfiguing Narrative," Hypertext (Baltimore: John Hopkins University  Press, 1992). 

 

W Oct 27 The Media Equation (Kernal)

• Selections from Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass, The Media Equation (Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 3-15,75-99, 101-108.

M Nov 1 LAB Teaching with Technology (Fendt)
 

• New Views in Education (Chapter 3), in: Hodges, M./Sasnett, R:  Multimedia Computing: Case Studies from the MIT Project Athena,  Reading, MA: 1993, Addison-Wesley, p. 29-37.
• Murray, J.: "Restructuring Space, Time, Story, and Text in Advanced  Multimedia Learning Environments", in: Barrett, E. (ed.): Sociomedia:  Multimedia, Hypermedia, and the Social Construction of Knowledge, 

Cambridge, MA, 1992, MIT Press, p. 319-345
• Schank, R./ Menachem, J.: "Empowering the Student. New Perspectives  on the Design of Teaching Systems", in: The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 1(1991), 7-35

• William J. Mitchell, "How to Do Things with Pictures," in The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in the Post-Photographic Era (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1992). 190-223 
• William J. Mitchell, "When Seeing is Believing?" in Scientific American Feb. 1994, pp. 44-49.

 

 
 
 

III. FUNCTIONS OF MEDIA 

A. STORYTELLING 

• Edgar Allan Poe, "Introduction," and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," in Tales of Mystery and Imagination, (London and New York: Everyman's Library) pp. 378-511. 
• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Adventure of the Blue Caruncle," The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, (Collier Books: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.) pp. 137-157. 
• Steven Marcus, "Introduction," in Dashiell Hammett The Continental Op (New York: Vintage Books, 1974) pp. vii-xxix.

W Nov. 10 The Detective Across Media II (Thorburn)

• Linda Barnes, "Lucky Penny," from The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories., ed. Tony Hillerman and Rosemary Herbert, (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997) 621-654. 
• Tony Hillerman, "Chee's Witch," The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories. p. 655-664.
• David Thorburn,  "Detective Programs," Encyclopedia of Television," p. 481-486.

M Nov. 15  Debates about Media Violence (Jenkins)

• David Gauntlet, "Ten Things Wrong with the 'Effects Model' (http://www.leeds.ac.uk/ics/theory/effects.htm)

B. POLITICAL POWER 

• Michael Schudson, "Changing Conceptions of Democracy" http://media-in-transition.mit.edu/conferences/democracy/index_schudson.html

• David Welch, "Nazi Film Policy: Control, Ideology, and Propaganda." In: Glenn Cuomo, ed. National Socialist Cultural Policy. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995. pp. 95-121. 

• John Fiske, "Bardic Television," in Reading Television (London and New York: Methuen, 1978) pp.85-100.
• David Thorburn, "Television as an Aesthetic Medium," Critical Studies in Mass Communication 4(1987), 167-173.
• David Thorburn, "Is TV Acting a Distinctive Art Form?" The New York Times, Aug. 14, 1977.

C. CONSENSUS BUILDING

W Nov. 24 Global Culture (Jenkins)

• George Lipsitz, Chapter 1, 2 from Dangerious Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism and the Poetics of Place (London: Verso, 1994). p. 2-48. 

• Pierre Levy, "The Dynamics of Intelligent Cities: a Manifesto for Molecular Politics" in Pierre Levy, Collective Intelligence:Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace (New York: Plenum Trade, 1997: 57-89).
• http://www.media.mit.edu/~wsack/vlsc/index.html

M Nov. 29 LAB: A Star is Born

IV. MEDIA INSTITUTIONS

W   Dec. 1 The Hollywood Studio System (Turk)

• Thomas Schatz, "MGM: Life After Thalberg,"in Thomas Schatz (ed.) The Genius of the System (Pantheon Books, 1988). 
• Rick Altman, "Symbolic Spectatorship," in Rick Altman, (ed.) The American Film Musical (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989) pp.334-344. (Final Paper Due*)

M Dec. 6 Media Conglomerates (Jenkins)

• Justin Wyatt, "From Roadshowing to Saturation Release: Majors, Independents and Marketing/Distribution Innovations" and Jon Lewis, "Money Matters: Hollywood in the Corporate Era" in Jon Lewis (Ed.) The New American Cinema (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998).  P.64-86, 87-121 

M Dec. 6 LAB Grassroots Media (Jenkins)

• Gareth Branwyn, "The New Media Hackers" from Jamming the Media: A Citizen's Guide for Reclaiming the Tools of Communication (San Francisco: Chronicle, 1997). P. 12-30.  

• Henry Jenkins, "Welcome to Bisexuality, Captain Kirk": Slash and the Fan-Writing Community," in Textual Poachers: Television Fan and Participatory Culture (Routledge, 1992) pp.185-222.
• Henry Jenkins, " Out of the Closet and into the Universe' Queers and Star Trek," in John Tulloch and Henry Jenkins (ed.) Science Fiction Audiences (Routledge, 1995) pp. 237-265.