Histories of Interactivity: Interactivity in Media History & Theory
This interdisciplinary course will introduce students to prominent histories and theories of media and information, including topics ranging from the advent of writing to the networked, interactive media experiences of the contemporary period. Uniting disparate theories of reading, writing, and reception, will be the question of what difference it makes if students shift their focus from thinking of media objects in terms of what they represent and instead in terms of what they do to us or what we do to them, that is, in terms of interaction. For example, what does reading Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice or Cao Xueqin's (曹雪芹) Dream of the Red Chamber (紅樓夢) do to us and our neurology? What does television do to our days, our politics? Students will probe the historical reasons for different classifications, touching on arguments from the classical period--notably those of Plato and Aristotle--as well as debates from the contemporary period--such as those advanced by theorists Friedrich Kittler and Marshall McLuhan. |
