Spring 2021 Syllabus
Syllabus | WRIT 502 | Digital English Studies: Technology, Text, Culture
Instructor Contact Information: Dr. Devon Ralston
email: ralstond@winthrop.edu
office hours: 5–6 M; 1–3 W & by appointment via Zoom
Course Description: Digital media has dramatically changed how we read, write, and communicate in the 21st century. As our notions of text and materiality evolve, the study of texts grows ever more interwoven with technology. This class is designed to make you aware of the myriad relationships that exist among texts — both in the reading and creative processes. Drawing on our vast knowledge of preexisting (cultural, social, literary, extraliterary) texts, the course looks back even as it looks forward, considering how printed texts and reading practices are transformed by the digital, in addition to examining digital media forms such as podcasts, wikis, and mapping technologies.
Throughout the course, we will ask the following sorts of questions: How is literature and our reading of it being changed by technology?
What influence does the container for a text have on its content? To what degree does immersion in a text depend upon the physicality of its interface? How are evolving technologies helping to enliven (or disengage us from) the materiality of literary texts?
We will engage our subjects through discussion of primary and secondary texts but also through our own experiments in building digital artifacts. We will work in unfamiliar media, coming to an understanding of varied interfaces by creating with and for them. Notes: Meets Technology Requirement for ENGL Majors. Frameworks. S/C/C Comm.
Course texts:
if on a winter’s night, a traveler Italo Calvino; ISBN: 9780156439619
History of Love Nicole Krauss; ISBN: 9780393328622
Lincoln in the Bardo George Saunders; audiobook
The Great Gatsby: The Graphic Novel F. Scott Fitzgerald, Illustrated by Aya Morton, Text Adapted by Fred Fordham; ISBN: 9781982144548
other texts will be provided online or via .pdfs
Structure & Activities: The following are brief descriptions. More detailed prompts will be handed out in class.
Medium responses/essays: We’ll be using Medium for publishing our weekly essays/responses. They are due Mondays before class. (200 points)
Literary Practices (150 points)
Media Practices (150 points)
Choose Your Own Adventure Analysis (200 points)
Final Critical Essay (300 points)
GRADING SCALE: A 100–94% A- 93–90% B+ 89–87% B 86–84% B- 83–80% C+ 79–77% C 76–74% C- 73–70% D+ 69–67% D 66–64% D- 63–60%
F 59% and below
