| ENG287H1S, Spring 2013 All lectures Wednesdays, 7-9pm Classroom: MS 3153 |
Instructor: Adam Hammond Office: JHB 802 Office Hours: Thursdays, 3-5pm E-mail: adam.hammond@utoronto.ca |
"But it may be fine—I expect it will be fine," said Mrs. Ramsay, making
some little twist of the reddish brown stocking she was knitting,
impatiently.
Current Notices
- The Spring 2013 section of The Digital Text is now complete.
- The Brown Stocking, the class project of the Fall 2012 and Spring 2013 sessions of The Digital Text, will be developed over the summer. The site will be launched in late August at the 2013 meeting of the Modernist Studies Association in Brighton, England, where we will present a poster and demo the site.
- We presented our first academic paper on The Brown Stocking at the HASTAC 2013 conference in Toronto on April 27th. We'll be presenting another paper on it at NAACL 2013 in Atlanta in June.
Course Description
Ours is the first generation to study literature in the digital age. E-books are outselling paperbacks; online scholarly databases are superseding library stacks; new works are being composed, distributed, and consumed electronically. How fundamental is this shift toward digitization? How does it affect the nature of the literary text, and how does it impact our work as readers and critics?
This course explores the interpretive and creative possibilities opened up by the shift from print to digital forms, as well as the social consequences of this transition. We will use computer-assisted analysis and visualization to ask new questions about literature and to provide statistical grounds for answers to older questions—and we will learn how to integrate our findings meaningfully into our writing. By studying the technical foundations for the production of digital texts, we will learn how the encoding of literary texts affects the questions we can ask of them. By analyzing digital-born forms such as webcomics, hypertext, interactive fiction, flash poetry, and video games, we will question how such texts alter the role of the reader, change the nature of narrative, and affect the task of interpretation.
Students will gain hands-on experience with and develop skills in quantitative textual analysis and text encoding. Students will participate in the production of a TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) edition of a section of Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, which will be developed into a website entitled The Brown Stocking. No programming experience is required.
TA Contact Information
This is listed in Blackboard.
Required Books
Marshall McLuhan's The Medium is the Massage (Gingko) is available from the University of Toronto Bookstore. Sword and Sworcery is available in an iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad version from the iTunes Store; in a Windows & Mac version via Steam (the Mac version is also available from the Mac App Store); and in an Android version from Google Play.
Any edition of Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse is acceptable, including the free online version linked from the syllabus.
There is a very nice print version of Dash Shaw's BodyWorld. You are not required to read BodyWorld in this form, but you may wish to. (Many past students have complained about the online version and praised the print version. Since this course is partly about the differences between digital and print, you may wish to try both.) The Beguiling on Markham and Bloor generally have BodyWorld in stock.
All other texts available for free online. (Links from syllabus below.)
Syllabus
- Items in green are to be read/explored/tinkered with before attending lecture.
- Items in black will be demonstrated during lecture; you are not required to visit them beforehand.
- Tutorials during the period indicated by the diagonal striped (
) pattern will take place according to the Computer Lab Tutorial Schedule described below.
| Date | Tutorial | Lecture |
| Jan. 9 | (None) | Introduction: Is Literature Dying in the Digital Age?
|
| Jan. 16 | (None) | Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage |
| Jan. 23 | Carr/Shirky/Birkerts, The Medium is the Massage | Computer-Assisted Textual Analysis |
| Jan. 30 | Computer-Assisted Textual Analysis | Rescuing Texts That Weren't Happy As Printed Books
|
| Feb. 6 | Rescuing Texts | The Universal Library
|
| Feb. 13 | Assignment #1 Due. The Universal Library | Introduction to Our Class Project, The Brown Stocking
|
| Feb. 20 | Reading Week — No class. |
|
| Feb. 27 | Our Class Project | The Technical Side of Our Class Project: TEI
|
| Mar. 6 | TEI | Born-Digital Fiction: The Practical Side
|
| Mar. 13 | TEI / BodyWorld |
Born-Digital Fiction: Interactivity
|
| Mar. 20 | Assignment #2 Due. Lucy Hardin and Galatea. | Born-Digital Fiction: Multimedia
|
| Mar. 27 | Inanimate Alice and YHCHI. | Born-Digital Fiction: the (Indie) Video Game
|
| Apr. 3 | Essay Due. Exam strategies and S:S&S EP. | Digital Texts and the Literary Marketplace
Exam Review and Preview of "Class-Sourced Edition" |
Tutorials will meet in computer labs (rather than their usual tutorial rooms) according to the below schedule. UC261 is located on the second floor of University College. RW109 is located in the Ramsay Wright Laboratories, on the SW corner of Habord and St. George, across the street from Robarts.
| DATE | LAB | TA GROUP |
| Jan. 30 | UC261 | Lindsey |
| RW109 | Kathleen | |
| Feb. 6 | UC261 | Melissa |
| RW109 | Elisa | |
| Feb. 13 | UC261 | Lindsey |
| RW109 | Kathleen | |
| Feb. 27 | UC261 | Melissa |
| RW109 | Elisa | |
| Mar. 6 | UC261 | Lindsey |
| RW109 | Kathleen | |
| Mar. 13 | UC261 | Melissa |
| RW109 | Elisa | |
| Mar. 20 | UC261 | Lindsey |
| RW109 | Kathleen | |
| Mar. 27 | UC261 | Melissa |
| RW109 | Elisa |
Evaluation
Assignment #1: Quantitative Analysis (3 pages): 15%
Assignment #2: Text Encoding (1-2 pages plus electronic tagging submission): 10%
Essay (6 pages): 30%
Participation in tutorial: 10%
Final examination: 35%
Late Policy
All assignments and papers are due in tutorial. They will be accepted up until one week after the due date, with an automatic deduction of one percentage point per day, up to a maximum of 7%. Work will not be accepted beyond a week after the due date except in the most extraordinary of circumstances. Any paper submitted over the weekend will be counted as submitted the following Monday and deductions will be calculated accordingly. For information on where and how to submit late papers, please see this page.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism, paper purchase, or other forms of academic dishonesty will not be tolerated. Refer to the University of Toronto's Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters (search for "plagiarism.")
Accessibility
The University of Toronto is committed to accessibility. If you require accommodations for a disability, or have any accessibility concerns about the course, the classroom, or course materials, please contact Accessibility Services.