21W765/21L489j Theory and Practice of Non-Linear and Interactive Narrative
Interactive Fiction Syllabus / Spring 1997
Additional readings will be assigned on the web.
Alan Ayckbourne, The Norman Chronicles (3 part play)
Jorge Luis Borges, "The Garden of Forking Paths" from Ficciones (1941) (handout)
Brannon Braga, writer. director Robert Wiemer, "Parallels." StarTrek:: The Next Generation. 1993.
Alan Lightman. Einstein's Dreams. New York: Pantheon, 1993. (selection)
Milorad Pavic,Dictionary of the Khasars: A Lexicon Novel in 100,000 Words. Trans. Christina Pribicevic-Zoric. New York: Knopf, 1988.
Danny Rubin, Harold Ramis, and writers. "Groundhog Day." . Ed. director Harold Ramis: Columbia Pictures, 1993. (video only)
Sterne, LaurenceThe Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy (1759-67) (Books I and II)
Wagner, Jane. The Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe.. produced 1985; published New York: Harper and Row, 1986. (video and text)
Foner, Leonard, "Entertaining Agents: A Sociological Case Stud y," Proceedings of the First International Conference on Autonomous Agents (Agents `97), Marina del Rey, California, February 1997. See also foner.media.mit.edu/people/foner/Julia/ ("Agents Memo 93.01, MIT Media Lab") for longer version.
Weizenbaum, Joseph. "ELIZA -- A Computer Program for the Study of Natural Language Communication Between Man and Machine." Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery 9 (1966): 36-45.
Bush, Vannevar. "As We May Think." Atlantic Monthly July 1945 1945: 101-8.
Landow, George. Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. Ed Gerald Prince Stephen G. Nichols Wendy Steiner. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992. (chapter on narrative) (*graduate students: Chapter I as well)
Propp, Vladimir. Morphology of the Folktale. Trans. Laurence Scott. 2 ed. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1928, 1968. (See assignment for sections to read)
Blank, Marc and Leibling, Dave. Zork. Computer software, 1977. Mainframe version. (available on Athena)
Joyce, Michael. afternoon. Computer software. Eastgate Systems, 1987. Macintosh, Storyspace environment.
Stuart Moulthrop Victory Garden (selections available on web)
Shelley Jackson Patchwork Girl Eastgate Systems, 1996. Macintosh, Storyspace environment
Michael Joyce Twilight Eastgate Systems, 1997. Macintosh, Storyspace environment
Weizenbaum, Joseph. Eliza (emacs version)
assignments on Web to come
(more to come)
Boden, Margaret. Artificial Intelligence and Natural Man. New York: Basic Books, 1977. (Sections on Eliza, PARRY, and Colby's Neurotic Woman.)
Forster, E. M. Aspects of the Novel. London: Arnold, 1927. (Sections on Character and Plot)
Friedman, Ted. "Making Sense of Software: Computer Games and Interactive Textuality." Community in Cyberspace. Ed. Steve Jones: Sage Publications, 1994.
Joyce, Michael. Of Two Minds: Hypertext Pedagogy and Poetics. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1995. (chapters on contours)
Lakoff, George. "Structural Complexity in Fairy Tales." The Study of Man I (1972): 128-150.
Laurel, Brenda. Computers as Theatre. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1993.
Nelson, Theodor Holm. Literary Machines. Swarthmore, Pa.: Self-published, 1981.
Ryan, Marie-Laure. Possible Worlds: Artificial Intelligence and Narrative Theory. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991.
Schank, Roger C., and R. P. Abelson. Scripts, Plans, Goals and Understanding. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1977.
Smith, Winifred. The Commedia dell'Arte. New York/London: Benjamin Blom, 1964.
Tobias, Ronald B. Twenty Master Plots (And How to Build Them). Cincinnati, Ohio: Writer's Digest Books, 1993.
Bates, Joseph. "The Role of Emotion in Believable Agents." Communications of the ACM 37.7 (July, 1994): 122-125.
Joseph Bates, A. Bryan Loyall, W. Scott Reilly. "An Architecture for Action, Emotion, and Social Behavior." Proceedings ofthe Fourth European Workshop on Modeling Autonomous Agents in a Multi-Agent World also available as CMU-CS-92-144.July (1992).
Brenda Laurel, Rachel Strickland, Rob Tow. ""Placeholder: Landscape and Narrative in Virtual Environments"." Computer Graphics: A publication of ACM SIGRAPH 28.2 (1994): 118-126.
Colby, K. M. Artificial Paranoia. New York: Pergamon, 1975.
Colby, K. M., and J.P. Gilberte. "Programming a Computer Model of Neurosis." Journal of Mathematical Psychology (1964): 405-17.
Kelso, Margaret Thomas, Peter Weyhrauch, and Joseph Bates. "Dramatic Presence." PRESENCE: The Journal of Teleoperators and Virtual Environments (1993).
Maes, Pattie, ed. Designing autonomous agents: theory and practice from biology to engineering and back. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992.
Meehan, James. "Tail-spin." Inside Computer Understanding. Ed. Roger Schank. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1981. 197-225.
Morningstar, Chip, and F. Randall Farmer. "The Lessons of Lucasfilm's Habitat." Cyberspace: First Steps. Ed. Michael Benedikt. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992.
Nelson, Theodor Holm. Literary Machines. Swarthmore, Pa.: Self-published, 1981..
Weizenbaum, Joseph. Computer Power and Human Reason. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1976. (sections on Eliza -- use index)