In
only a decade, it has become “impossible to think about life without
the web” (David Gauntlett 2000). To facilitate the transition from
user to critical user, this course will investigate the media-specific social,
cultural and political in teractions that take place via the Internet. With
the help of critical theories and group-based Web studies, the class will
learn to analyze representations of the www in popular culture (film, television,
literature, magazines, both on-line and off-line), and to assess the decision
and design processes, which form the aesthetic and economic interface between
networks and users. Of particular concern will be how the so-called “virtual
community” deals with issues of race and gender and how it (de)constructs
subjectivities, bodies, languages, and geographies.
LITR 93: Cyberculture
Spring 2005
Tue/Th 2:40-3:55pm
Kohlberg 330
Associate Professor of German
610.328.7354