ENGL 214 - The Dynamic Word: Textuality and Technology

English 214 The Dynamic Word: Textuality and Technology Instructor: Dr. Andrew Klobucar English Department Capilano University Course Structure: 3.00 credits, (4,0,0) hrs, 15 wks

Courseware Description and Objectives

This course aims to introduce students to the various ways technology has both influenced and been incorporated into literary works of the modern period.  Course texts will comprise an assortment of media formats, ranging from experiments in typography and sound recording to electronic multimedia formats suitable for online or CD-ROM publishing.  Together we will investigate first hand the many different technologies of reproduction currently available, while analyzing important ways technical innovation in general has informed literary history.

Much of the course will focus on recent developments in digital media technologies. Digital writing is, in itself, an important emerging interdisciplinary field that draws together a variety of related academic areas, including literature, cultural studies and communications. This combination of approaches and methods is designed to provoke an array of critical questions regarding the influence of new media technologies on art, academic learning and even cognition itself.  Major themes to be explored will include:

• Writing and/as technology
• The evolution of media from print to screen
• The emergence of new electronic literary genres like hypertext, cybertext literature, flash-based narratives, etc.
• Important political questions surrounding what is known as the “digital divide,” i.e., issues concerning equal access to different technologies, copyright and corporate control of content.
  

There are no technical pre-requisites, but as some of the works will be read via screen, consistent, secure access to a personal computer and high-speed Internet is recommended.