Matt Kirschenbaum's provacative midterm exam has me thinking seriously about new media assessment.
I'm thinking about a midterm exam
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Feb 252004
Imitation a Form of Flattery?
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Feb 132004
One of my students ran across the site of a teacher in Texas who's using the same weblog review assignment as the one my new media students did last semeseter. I don't really mind — it's a good assignment, and I like for all of us academics to share and share alike. The only trouble is she copied it verbatim and left my students' names next to the sites they reviewed (as if they were the authors of those sites) — which might make for some awkard explaining to her students when they get around to doing the assignments. A little bit of closer reading might have been appropriate 
Travel, Identity, Blogging
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Jan 282004
Last Thursday, in my Internet Writing & Society class, we discussed identity, and in what aspects specific media genres (for instance the “homepage,” webcam site, MUD, livejournals and weblog) allow for the fashioning of identities, which are not necessarily one the same type of identity that the author might intend — that the various media allow for a limited kind of “self-fashioning” and that the identity (or identities) fashioned by these media representations of self are generally distinct both from the author's “real life” identity and from what the author imagines the media identity to be. Many people do make assumptions from the posts to a weblog, and they aren't always the assumptions you'd want them to make. For instance, the caxton server went down shortly after I'd arrived in Bergen, so my travel memoirs were limited to an airport discussion and a discussion of a party I attended. When I arrived back at Stockton, I heard from several colleagues that they were jealous of me for getting over to Europe, and in one case that from my blog he saw that I was “carousing rather than visiting stave churches, which is the type of thing I would have done if I was over there.” While all these comments were well-intended, they did get me to thinking about the nature of blogging, about the nature of travel, about the idea of “vacation.”
If blogging from Norway only established that I was “carousing,” it would have perhaps been better not to have blogged. I could have just as easily focused on the work that I did while I was in Bergen — constructed a post about the half-day I spent preparing for the two-hour lecture I gave at the University of Bergen, and on the responses to it. The lecture did go well, and it was a great experience teaching to an audience of students trained in European, rather than American academic conventions. I could have blogged about the work that Jill and I did on an interview with Robert Coover and Noah Wardrip-Fruin for the Iowa Review Web. I could have blogged about prepping for courses in airports, about the curious experience of reading Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveller while on a plane home following the sun, about reading essays from the Postmodern Reader and experiencing a slight disjuncture between my current reading of postmodernism and that of the last time I was really engaged in postmodern theory, as a graduate student a decade ago in central Illinois (Postmodernism is now oddly dated — we're post-post now). Or my thoughts about globalism (the glossolalia of Europe, different languages everywhere, compared to the parochialism of South Jersey). I could have focused on the art museums Jill and I visited — the Kunstmuseum in Bergen and my thoughts about the personal life of Edvard Munch (it seems as if he were a happy young man who grew more bitter as he aged — and the irony that his most bitter art is that for which he is remembered) and a contemporary art museum in Copenhagen, which was a kind of cross between an art gallery and a conventional museum, price tags on most pieces. The most remarkable works we saw there were a series of remarkable illustrations of fairy tales such as the little mermaid and little red riding hood, emphasizing what could only be called the depravity of these tales, done by a british artist, Paula Rego, and an installation which, on one side, appeared to be an example of modern design, a white construction of wood arranged in simple patterns, but which on the other side consisted of an aluminum framework covered in hand drawings, many of them seeming to be representations of often-scatalogical subconscious thought. I could have represented the professional connections made in Bergen, that I had the pleasure of scholarly discourse with at least a half dozen people who have done important work in my field. Ultimately, my trip was more about people than places — not primarily professional contacts, but personal ones. What made it a vacation was spending with Jill, playing with Aurora, meeting Jill's parents and seeing how people carry on life in Bergen.
There's an odd American idea that travel should be either about complete indulgence (margaritas on an anonymous beach) or about a kind of industry, an extension of the protestant work-for-work's sake ethos. Do nothing or do everything. When I was young, my family used to go on road-trip vacations that had history themes — the Revolutionary War vacation, the Civil War vacation. I have fond memories of lobbying with my brothers for trades, such as three battlefields in exchange for one amusement park. Were I to always apply the standards of vacation-as-extenstion-of-work, when in Norway I should have proven the content of my character by absorbing as much as possible of the geographical and cultural history of Scandinavia as possible in my allotted time. I should have visited multiple cities and hit all the major cultural institutions and demonstrated that I was incapable of wasting time. There's an idea that all vacations should be a form of intellectual colonialism, that we should bring back all the treasures to our own private British Museums. I don't subscribe to that idea — I learned as much from listening to Aurora talk about her struggle with a mean kid on the playground at school as I did in my limited exposure to the history of the Hanseatic League. There is pleasure in visiting new places, but more to be found in interacting with people who you care about, wherever they may happen to live. Of course, the day we spent in Copenhagen, I did give into the efficient American tourist urge — had to see a museum, the castle, the fort, the little mermaid. Check, check, check, check.
What am I trying to say? Perhaps that either I am not my blog or that I should try to be sharply aware of what slices of my life my blog represents to others. But on the other hand, were I to spend a great deal of time thinking about how my blog establishes a particular identity, I think that I would in some way become frustrated with its inauthenticity, and simply stop blogging. It feels like this should be a different kind of platform. I suppose that I have similar anxieties about The Unknown — a hypertext novel in which I am a character who is alternatively a meglomaniac, a heroin addict, an advocate of free speech, a lover, a fighter, a liar and a thief. Yet in real life, I don't even dabble in heroin. Perhaps all representations should be read as fictions. The identity you read from my blog may no more be my character than my simulacrum in The Unknown.
Along those lines, there's been an interesting discussion of some of the assumptions that people made, and the actions that they took, about Online Caroline, an email and web fiction that posed as reality (and which, as it turns out, to the author's surprise, some folks disturbingly took as reality), at Grand Text Auto.
Course Sites for Spring 2004 online
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Jan 282004
The websites for my Spring 2004 classes: Senior Seminar in Postmodernism, Internet Writing & Society, and Hypertext, are now online, and the semester's off to a good start. It was refreshing, on the first day of class, to see so many familiar faces, many of my best students from the last three semesters are back (it's sort of like an all-star reunion tour), and all three classrooms are lively. I even have two students who are in all three courses — Jacob Moon, who will be the first student to complete the New Media Studies track at Stockton is taking all three courses and doing his internship with me this semester as well. It's kind of nice having a couple of students running the same marathon as I am Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:30 AM to 8:00 PM.
Jan 202004
At the start of each semester on the first day of class, I distribute a brief questionnaire and ask the students to briefly interview and introduce each other. It usually serves to break the ice a bit. I usually include the final question “What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?” but because it was so cold this morning, I changed the final question to “What is your favorite flavor of soup?” and the results from all three classes are in. Chicken noodle soup is predictably the winner with ten votes (not even counting Chicken with Stars, which I was instructed NOT to include with chicken noodle soup, as noodles and stars are more or less completely different things), though New England clam chowder pulled a close second with eight votes. The “Potato Soup Family” — cream of potato, potato leek, and baked potato soup, collectively drew 5 votes. The survey was most notable for the diversity of soups which Stockton students prefer. The complete results:
The State of the Soup
Chicken Noodle 10 votes
(plus 1 vote for Chicken with Stars)
New England Clam Chowder 8 votes
Tomato 5 votes
(plus 1 vote for Tomato Alphabet Soup)
Onion 3 votes
Cream of Potato 3 votes
Potato Leek 1 vote
Baked Potato 1 vote
Ramen 3 votes
Broccoli and Cheese 2 votes
Minestrone 2 votes
Cream of Broccoli 1 vote
Plain Chicken Broth 1 vote
Tortellini 1 vote
Sausage Tortellini 1 vote
Vegetable 1 vote
Italian Wedding 1 vote
Cream of Mushroom 1 vote
Duck Soup 1 vote
Cream of Carrot 1 vote
Lentil and Vegetable 1 vote
Bean and Bacon 1 vote
Manhattan Clam Chowder 1 vote
Chicken Corn Chowder 1 vote
Won-ton 1 vote
Miso 1 vote
Pasta Fazool 1 vote
Beef Barley 1 vote
The Complete Guide to Your Academic Career
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Dec 162003
From Ken at StocktonTech, Phil Agre's Networking on the Network, A Guide to Professional Skills for PhD Students. Lots of good professional advice for PhD students (and junior faculty), from the first year to the full professorship.
Blog on Blogs
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Dec 142003
My Fall 2003 Intro to New Media Studies class collaboratively produced Blog on Blogs, a review of weblogs.
Dec 142003
The students in my New Media Studies course this term produced Blog on Blogs, a review of several different types of weblogs. This semester was the first time we dedicated significant class time to weblogs, along with electronic lit genres including hypertext, new media poetry, and interactive fiction. I think it worked out pretty well as a class assignment, in that it both required the students to put some critical thought into weblogs as a genre, and to regard their own web writing as public discourse.
This post was originally published on Grand Text Auto.
Dec 132003
The students in my New Media Studies course this term produced Blog on Blogs, a review of several different types of weblogs. This semester was the first time we dedicated significant class time to weblogs, along with electronic lit genres including hypertext, new media poetry, and interactive fiction. I think it worked out pretty well as a class assignment, in that it both required the students to put some critical thought into weblogs as a genre, and to regard their own web writing as public discourse.
This post was originally published on Grand Text Auto.
Jill Walker's Upcoming Visit -- December 3rd
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Nov 262003
Congratulations to Dr. Jill Walker, who defended her dissertation this week in Bergen, Norway. Dr. Walker is celebrating the successful defense of her dissertation with a visit to Stockton. She'll be giving a presentation on blogs as a literary genre next Wednesday, December 3rd, at Noon in the Townsend Resedential Life Center Multipurpose Room. Anyone interested is welcome to attend. Although I can't guarantee she'll look as stunningly beautiful as she did last evening at the party after her defense,
having read her superb dissertation and several of her articles, and having followed her weblog for the past couple of years, I can assure all attendees that it's sure to be a fascinating talk, delivered in a wonderful Australian accent.
Jill is an avid weblogger, and weblogs are currently both the topic of and a
primary method in her teaching and research. She is recognised as a leading
authority on weblogs, and has lectured extensively on weblogging and
networked communications internationally. Her paper “Blogging Thoughts“,
co-authored with Torill Mortensen, was one of the first academic papers on
weblogs, and she has written the definition of “Weblog” for the forthcoming Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory.
In addition to weblogs, Jill's main research interest is electronic
literature. Her first conference paper on the topic won the Ted Nelson
Newcomer Award at ACM's Hypertext '99, and since then she has presented at
numerous conferences and published in journals both in Norway and
internationally. Her book chapter “How I was Played by Online Caroline” is
forthcoming in First Person: New Media as Story, Performance and Game from
MIT Press later this year. She co-edits the Hypertext Criticism theme of the
Journal of Digital Information with Susana Tosca, and is a frequent
contributor to Norwegian public debate on electronic art and literature. Her main claim to fame may be that her weblog is the top hit for “Jill” on
Google.
Everquest 101
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Nov 172003
Another essay from the State of Play conference, MMORPGS in the College Classroom by Aaron Delwiche, has me thinking through some of the problems I might encounter trying to use MMOPRGS in the classroom. Delwiche's class spent a whole quarter on Everquest. The steep learning curve of the game, Everquest burnout, and even the trouble with presenting Everquest as a convincing homework assignment (not that all of my students seemed convinced that reading a book is a reasonable homework assignment) are explored in this essay.
I'm thinking that team-written group papers exploring the social aspects of several different games over a shorter period of time (say two or three weeks) might be more doable in one of my courses than a full-blown ethnographic study.
Distance Learning Model
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Nov 142003
I'm teaching my first hybrid distance learning course next summer (Books into Movies), and I'm participating in a committee at Stockton that addresses distance ed. I ran across Al Filreis' course at Penn, English 88V, and think it's a great model for a web distance course — lots of online resources, short video clips, position papers, and synchronous and asynchoronous discussion. I especially like their short guide to position papers and the realvideo lecture that accompanies it. I might even send my New Media Students over there — the type of position paper they describe is exactly the type of work I look for NMS students to write in their reading journals.
Blogs for NMS Project
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Nov 142003
My students in New Media Studies are doing a collaborative weblog review project coinciding with Jill Walker's upcoming visit (Dec. 3rd). I've been trying to put together a list of blogs that represents the breadth of approaches that people are taking to the medium, and ranging from student blogs to those of professional researchers and writers to group blogs, from comic blogs to political blogs to confessional blogs. The next couple of weeks are going to be blogomania in New Media Studies.
In Monday's class we're going to do a bit of transcontinental iChatting with Professor Walker about her weblog definition and bounce around some ideas for the project. A tentative list of blogs that students will choose from for the assignment:
Open-Eyed Prayer
Razor’s Edge
What’s in Rebecca’s Pocket
Jill/txt
Grand Text Auto
This Modern World
Smart Mobs (Howard Rheingold)
Doc Searls
Steven Johnson
Scott McCloud
William Gibson
Lawrence Lessig
Liz Lawley
Matt Kirschenbaum
Misbehaving.net
Blog Sisters
Boing Boing
Jason Rhody
Gonzola Frasca
Oblivio
Justin Hall
Frank Schaap
Where is Raed?
Text America (Moblog)
Brownglasses
Quarlo
Shutterbug
Umamitsunami
Rachet Up
Caterina Fake
Howard Dean
Instapundit
Hannah's House
My trailer is bigger than your trailer
Mise en Place
For amusement only:
The Dullest Blog in the World
Cold War, Red Scare Links
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Nov 142003
Teaching The Book of Danielis calling to mind a frightening time in American history, made all the more frightening by the way in which some of the rhetoric surrounding the Red Scare sounds very familiar right about now, shadowy terrorists taking the place of shadowy communists, civil liberties likewise expendable.
An account of the Rosenberg Trial
Lillian Hellman's Letter to HUAC (and other texts related to HUAC).
The Trial of the Scottsboro Boys
The Literature & Culture of the American 1950s by Alan Filreis
Being There
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Nov 112003
Although I still haven't yet played it, the more I explore There and the other avatar/gameworlds, the more I become intruiged by the idea of integrating an avatar world experience into one of my NMS courses — perhaps as a collaborative student project/cultural study in the Internet, Writing & Society course I'm teaching next semester. I'm fascinated by the way that There and the Simverse, etc. develop a whole culture around the game. There, for instance, has its own virtual daily newspapers. A two-week analytical immersion in the game followed might fit in well around the time we're reading Sherry Turkle's Life on the Screen. I'm playing around with ideas on it. It might even be a interesting project to collaborate on with students at another university.
Books for Spring 2004 Classes
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Nov 052003
Several students have asked me what books I'll be using in next semester's courses.
I just completed orders for Spring 2004. The complete list is below. Senior Sem students will also be choosing a novel as the subject for their seminar papers. A couple other notes for students who happen on this — somebody messed up and the Senior Sem is listed as POI in the bulletin. The course is not POI and I have had the restriction lifted from the system — you do not need a permit to register for the course if you are a senior LITT major. Also, NMS students, please note that Internet, Writing & Society is replacing the course previously titled Network Textualities, which I was going to be teaching this fall before I was asked to pick up Books into Movies.
Senior Seminar in Postmodernism
LITT-4610-001
The Norton Anthology of Postmodern Fiction
Paperback
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company; (September 1997)
ISBN: 039331698X
A Postmodern Reader
Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr; (July 1993)
ISBN: 0791416380
Hypertext
LITT-3224-001
The Norton Anthology of Postmodern Fiction
Paperback
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company; (September 1997)
ISBN: 039331698X
Dictionary of the Khazars: A Lexicon Novel in 100,000 Words/Male Edition
by Milorad Pavic, et al (Paperback – October 1989)
Publisher: Vintage Books; (October 1989)
ISBN: 0679724613
Patchwork Girl
by Shelley Jackson
for Macintosh and Windows (hybrid CD)
Eastgate Systems
ISBN 1-884511-23-6
Internet, Writing, and Society
LITT-3251-001
Unspun: Key Concepts for Understanding the World Wide Web
Publisher: New York University Press; (January 2001)
Thom Swiss, ed.
ISBN: 081479759
The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World
by Lawrence Lessig
Publisher: Vintage Books; (November 12, 2002)
ISBN: 037572644
Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution
by Howard Rheingold
Publisher: Perseus Publishing; (October 15, 2002)
ISBN: 073820608
Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet
by Sherry Turkle
Publisher: Touchstone Books; Reprint edition (September 1997)
ISBN: 0684833484
Writing Machines (Mediaworks Pamphlets)
by N. Katherine Hayles (Author), Anne Burdick
Publisher: MIT Press; (November 15, 2002)
ISBN: 0262582155
Fall 2003 Syllabi Online
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Sep 252003
The course websites for my Fall 2003 courses:
are now online. As usual, my NMS students will be blogging their reading journals, and will construct a collaborative online project later in the semester.
Jul 262003
The past five weeks of my life have been occupied by my intensive summer multimedia production course. I'm pretty pleased with the two collaborative projects my students cranked out: Liberty Lockdown: a tale of terror at the National Constitution Center, and The Atlantic City Boardwalk Project: a lighthearted guide to life on the Atlantic City Boardwalk that is by turns informative, humorous, bawdy and downright silly. I'm very happy with the way that the group pulled together and got so much work done over so short a period of time. It's the first time I've seen students regularly staying in the computer lab after a three hour class to keep on top of the projects.
Collaborative Projects in Multimedia Production
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Apr 252003
This semester, the students in my Multimedia Production course produced two collaborative web fiction projects: Atlantic City Murder and In Search of the Jersey Devil. I'm still noticing many irritating typos, sentence structure problems, and syntax errors, which I anticipate the class members are diligently cleaning up in preparation for their final portfolio grade. Both projects turned out to be a bit . . . sillier . . . than I might have hoped, but I would describe them as pedagogically successful (most of my students had never built a webpage before taking the class, and now they all know the rudiments of XHTML and CSS). We had some difficulties as a class — we were in a PC lab on Tuesdays and a Mac lab on Thursdays, with different software configurations in each room. On the whole, however, the projects were a great experiment in the chaos of collaborative webmaking (and also fun).
Dec 102002
Well, those months went to my dissertation. Which is done. Finally. (and some teaching). I feel like a guilty blogger. So many things I should have written about/should write about. First semester trials and tribulations, successes and failures at teaching new media (next week is the last week of class). To do and not to do not next semester. Works to teach and not to teach. Pedagogies to embrace and avoid. Observations about New Jersey cuisine. Watching my students take to blogging (and not take to it). Reminder to self to write about the students who took to it and made actual cool web logs at the same time as they fulfilled the assignments. Conversation with Wardrip Fruin about his take on electronic writing. Talking elit archiving in Santa Fe after too little sleep and too much stress (see dissertation). Resolution to study Moulthrop's Reagan Library more carefully and to teach it. Reading Kind of Blue, the serial email novel thingie I wrote last summer in NYC. Tips to stay sane for new faculty finishing dissertations. Recipes. Thoughts on redistribution of said email novel. Thoughts about collaborative writing assignments for next semester's multimedia production class. Resolution never to try cooking fresh cranberries in rice again. Finally, a vegetarian lasagna I can live with. Resolution to quit smoking cigarettes, for real this time. Thoughts on Yuengling beer (pronounced Ying Ling) and why I like ordering it more than drinking it. Observations on southern Jersey resort culture. Thought that I could never be any but an irresponsible blogger. Could blog only when other pressing concerns (such as book review half written) were pressing, as distraction. Note to cite student Mary Beth Fisher I think comment on blogging while knowing that her teachers are reading it. Shock that this blog thing is the first thing that comes up when you do a google search on me. Mortified. Rant against New Jersey automobile registration procedures and exorbitant insurance rates. Thoughts on turning thirty-two, 2x2x2x2x2. Elation over successful defense, corresponding improvement in love life. List of films involving madness and creativity. Resolution to start using two spaces after a period again because it now feels charmingly anachronistic. Search for email system to distribute Kind of Blue as a single-user anytime opt-in mailing. After proofreading it. But not putting in any semicolons. And bringing murder subplot to less abrupt resolution. More Ernesto. Resolution to accomplish said in early spring. Resolution never to become stressed out again by deadlines. Resolution concerning UN Resolutions. Note to make list of New Year's resolutions. Realization that I only got caught up on my electronic literature reading by forcing students to do presentations on works I hadn't read. Resolution to do the same next semester. Thoughts on actual critical book Electronic Literature: a User's Manual. Private note to analyze why I like recycling other people's titles. List of people to interview for book. Resolution to interview Larry McCaffery on interviewing people before interviewing anyone else. Resolution to try at least six new recipes before the end of February, including three vegetarian. Appreciation of Chicago visit. Thoughts on language acquisition. Appreciation of Karen's cooking. Resolution to purchase pasta maker. At some point. Thoughts on likelihood that I will get searched at airport. Oh yes Shelley Jackson's visit and story idea I should have recommended to her for that GQ knockoff mag she's writing for –on eroticism of contemporary airport searches. Also remarks I should have written on her reading of “Phlegm” in Jersey. Also remarks on the Remote Lounge where I read with Montfort and Steph Strickland, the venue far more interesting than we were. Obvious Foucauldian aspects might make such ironically difficult to theorize. Rants. More rants. Resolution to write a short story for print this summer. Resolution to learn Flash but not to become seduced by it. Resolution to travel to another country, even Canada. To stay in better touch with friends. And where are the great American hypertext novels? Resolution to send Mark Bernstein a note of congratulations as soon as he conquers this task by finishing his enovel about the perverted elf photographer. Can't believe I mentioned that. Mortified. Resolution to stop writing resolutions. Resolution to write more less serious hypertext. Appreciation of Joseph Tabbi as sommelier. Comparison and contrast on Nick Montfort and Dirk Stratton's habits re: exotic beverages. Resolution to write about Atlantic City. Regrets on bit lit project Montfort owed. Resolution to stop writing in the blog and to get back to the second page of that book review. Resolution to finish my book review before Koskimaa finishes his. Preferably now. Resolution to publish something in the New Yorker within the next few months, failing that the Paris Review, failing that GQ (see piece on eroticism of airport searches), failing that, Boy's Life, failing that, Newspoetry. Expression of regrets that Newspoetry, for the last several years the sole publisher of my poetry, now more or less going under mothballs, yet another casualty of the Bush economy. Regrets on not writing on last election. Resolution to return to my comic roots periodically. Resolution to write another play. To always wear a jacket and tie to Christmas parties if I'm unsure of their formality. To begin cheering for one of the successful Philadelphia sports franchises without giving up my self-abusingly ingrained fandom for Chicago's losers. Resolution to read more Algren. Where are the great American novels? Resolution to catch up on Chabon book over break and additionally all other novels written by great American novelists now funded by the Department of State as part of the cultural war on terrorism. Note to self: drop note to Dept. of State volunteering to be funded by them. Note to self: never pass up a junket to Europe again, or Asia. Remember to buy flowers. Write more. Develop secret agenda and publish it in your weblog. Spend several hours before the end of the year proofreading the Unknown. For laughs. Do this at least once a year. With mulled wine, or hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps. Learn how to order Indian food capably without Wittig's help. Iron trousers. Start reviewing restaurants in South Jersey and publish said reviews in your Web log. Add relatives’ birthdays to computer calendar. Send emails to friends you've not written to in several years. Attach new recipes. Read Richard Powers' new novel. And Nabokov's Pale Fire. Before the New Year read Pale Fire. That about covers it. Never reveal the secret of your internal disorganization, but always publish your secret agenda. Less TV. Catch up on videogames for scholarly reasons. More satisfaction. Get Elvis album with that song. Also soundtrack to I am Sam with all the cool Beatles covers. Note to self: write long essay on note to self as a subgenre of metafiction. Try William's trick of writing without stopping each day for thirty minutes. Write Harry Mathews a holiday note using an obscure oulipan technique without explaining to him what that trick is. Read Harry Mathews Cigarettes and Journalist by Spring. Back to the book review.
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