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Computer Courses

The Technologies Curriculum Group (TCG), in their report of March 3rd 2000, envisaged the need for several new computer and technology courses. The main details of this proposal are provided below, modified in the light of later discussions, including the implications of the planned reduction in faculty course load. The importance of introducing new courses in this area is underlined by the advent of the M.A. in Humanities Computing.

Senior Course provision. Current provision of computing in English courses is desultory, depending on the interests and skills of individual teachers and the lottery of senior course selection each year. The TCG agreed that if literary computer applications and issues were to be mainstreamed, this called for the introduction of several specific technology courses. Four courses were proposed, devoted to:

  • Literary Computing (text analysis, etc.)
  • Hypertext theory
  • Hypertext Writing (a WRITE course); and
  • Cyberculture

It seems appropriate to offer the first of these, Literary Computing, at the 200 level; the remaining courses would be 300 level. These courses might then be followed by more advanced 400-level courses according to the interests of faculty.

The four course descriptions below (left) are taken unmodified from the TCG report of March 2000. We assumed these would each be half courses:


Proposed course descriptions Elsewhere

1. Literary computing

This course will explore the ways in which computers can be used to assist in studies of literature, particularly those that are based on close examination of textual material. It will begin with an examination of the World Wide Web, which has led to an explosion in the growth of computer usage. We will look at some issues in building Web sites for the literature, in terms of audience, longevity of the material, access tools and maintenance. The course will also look at the many different formats of electronic texts which now exist. We will assess the relative merits of these and, by encoding a small sample of material, gain an understanding of how markup and encoding can contribute to the interpretation of texts. We will explore some simple tools for the analysis and manipulation of electronic texts and examine their application for literary and linguistic studies. We will examine the application of basic descriptive and inferential statistics to text analysis. Finally, we will see how structured and relational databases can be used to store and analyse certain types of humanities-related material.

For examples see:

Introduction to Text Processing (Glasgow)

Basic methods and techniques (King's College, London)

Introduction to Computers in the Humanities (McMaster)

Humanities Computing (Miall)

2. Hypertext theory

The prophecy that electronic writing will transform the nature of literary studies is one that is now heard with increasing frequency. It advocates have recently begun to put a new and powerful argument: computer technology for transmitting or representing texts within the medium of hypertext will allow us to bring these processes a major step nearer to the activities of actual readers. This in turn is revolutionizing understanding of the nature of textuality itself, in line with the claims of postmodern theorists from Barthes to Hillis Miller. If this is true, the forthcoming shift in the domain of the literary will be on a tectonic scale, analogous to that brought about in the visual arts by the invention of photography and film. In this course we will examine critically the arguments for the postmodern status of hypertext, and consider to what extent such accounts of electronic textuality agree with what is known about writing and reading, both theoretically and empirically. We will also study some of the pedagogical evaluations of hypertext in order to assess their role in teaching and learning.

For examples see:

Electronic Textuality (Fraistat, Maryland)

Tale, Text, and Hypertext (Zalis, National University)

Literature and Hypertext (Guertin)

Hypertext reading and writing (Miall)

3. Hypertext writing

The course is a nontraditional "immersion" laboratory (3-hour classes). We will explore and analyse visual and verbal aspects of electronic writing as well as selected earlier experimental approaches to reading and writing in, for instance, poetry and film. While we develop introductory skills in hypertext writing, electronic graphics, scanning photographs, animation, sound, and video, etc., we will be required to analyse some of the contextual issues concerning electronic communication and virtuality. The lab will be structured around a series of writing experiments, intensive readings, group projects, as well as the production of an individual hypertext by each participant. Brown University describes their hypertext workshops (offered since 1991) as "providing an opportunity for writers to experiment with the nonlinear, multidimensional, interactive space of the computer." Our course will do this and more! As incoming students become more proficient in computing, the course will be adapted to include more critical thinking about writing and technology, especially in relation to other media.

For example see:

Hamlet in Hyperspace (Salomon, Black Hills State University)

4. Cyberculture

The subject of study is cyberculture and virtual communities. What began as a small group of people communicating over the Internet in the days before the invention of a windows-type Web browser has now been transformed into a multi-faceted international virtual world, with many subcultures interacting over the Internet, using textual and graphical means of communication. We will examine who forms and has access to these communities (haves and have nots), the types of communities (social, professional, commercial, self-help) and the electronic mediums they use, and the forms of representation in use, including the issues of power, and gender that these raise. We will examine the debate about virtual reality, and consider the relation of VR to narrativity, the body, and identity. Students will examine the Internet as well as some of the speculative fiction from which conceptions of cyberspace have developed (e.g., Gibson's Neuromancer).

For examples see:

Cybermedia (Kirschenbaum, Kentucky)

Cyberfeminism + Technoculture (matrix, Minnesota)

Information in Cyberspace (Haubitz, University of Texas at Austin)

Issues arising

Honors program. The Curriculum Review report of October 18 2000 provided a structure for the Honors program, which laid out the credits required in the theoretical, period, and other areas. The Computer Committee was concerned that humanities computing had not been specified in listing these areas. However, in view of the planned course reduction it may be appropriate to allow credits to be fulfilled by the proposed computer courses as follows:

1) Theory and Critical Methologies: to include Literary Computing

2) Language, Rhetoric, Writing: to include Hypertext Theory and Hypertext Writing (cross-listed with WRITE)

3) Cultural Materialism, Cultural Studies, Popular Culture: to include Cyberculture

Each of the new courses would run once every two years, thus in any year two technology courses would be offered.

Interdisciplinarity. The domain of computing reaches well beyond text-based studies, including disciplines from graphic design, through media studies, to computer science. We suggest that in designing both these courses, and especially courses at the 400 level, consideration be given to developing cross-disciplinary modules with faculty in other departments where courses would be cross-listed.

Student credit. The TCG suggested that students completing a major project in one of these courses might apply to be given credit for it both as an exercise of computer skills, and in a regular class (e.g., in Medieval or Post-Colonial) for its literary content.

Summary of resource implications:

See Resources section for details.