PHI: 3224/4930:
Media Philosophy
Spring 2008
Daniel White
Email:
dwhite@fau.edu; please see my Web page for
Office Hours and Syllabi: http://wise.fau.edu/~dwhite.
(Please
note: this syllabus is subject to regular updates; you should check this online
version weekly.)
This course addresses the
broad shift from the Gutenberg technology and philosophy of communication that
have dominated academe since the 16th century to the media of mass
communication like film, television and computational forms of digital media
that have come, since the mid 20th, to pervade Postindustrial Society (in
the Language of Daniel Bell), the Global Village (in the language of Marshall
McLuhan), or global culture in the Mode of Information (in the words of Mark
Poster). The range of subject matter that may be included in the course is
extensive: cultural movements such as postmodernism, poststructuralism;
emerging forms of writing, visual media and arts; multi- and digital-media
constructions; virtual communities emergent on the World Wide Web; the
alteration of human identities by communicative practice; the transformation of
biology into bio-informatics and the emergence of genetic engineering; the
related reconceptualization of organisms under the paradigm of robotics,
"of machines that think and want" (in the language of pioneer
technologist Warren McCulloch); the convergence of microbiology with
cybernetics—the science of "control and communication in the animal and
the machine" (as Norbert Wiener subtitled his originary 1948 treatise in
the field); and related forms of inquiry across the arts and sciences.
Specifically, Media
Philosophy concentrates on the way in which different media of communication
shape knowledge, value, and reality. It in turn subjects issues in media and
communication to philosophical analysis and explores the relationship between
philosophical outlooks and the media in which they are articulated. Is it true,
as Nietzsche said, that “We have not got rid of God because we still believe in
grammar?” Broadly, our study will be concerned with the grammar and semantics
of diverse media of communication. The course is organized historically and
thematically, focusing on axial points in the twin histories of communications
media and world perspectives. The historical sequence begins with the
communications revolution that shaped the early modern period to yield what
Marshall McLuhan called “The Gutenberg Galaxy.” It then steps to the inventions
of photography and film, exploring their ramifications for ideas of knowledge
and value. It proceeds to the discussion of television and the mass
communications developed in the wake of WWII. Finally, it considers the rise of
personal computing, the Internet, and virtual reality as they bear on ideas of
knowledge, reality, ethics, and aesthetics.
Gordon Rule: 3,000 words:
You will write a series of three critical essays, each in at
least two drafts, on key themes of the course.
Each essay will require: a) the use of standard
English composition, grammar, and mechanics; b) the use of an established
documentation style; c) the clear development of a thesis (based on theory) in
terms of topics and examples (drawn from media sources). Each essay will be graded in terms of
composition and content. The final
draft of each essay must be at least
1,000 words in length, totaling a minimum of 3,000 words of final-draft
writing for the term. Rough drafts are required though their word counts are in
addition to the Gordon Rule. Please see Dr. Weisser’s Online
Writing Handbook: http://wise.fau.edu/~weisser/handbook.htm should be used as
a reference guide for English composition.
Students enrolled in this
course agree to abide by the Honors
College Honor Code. Please review this important document: http://www.fau.edu/divdept/honcol/academics_honor_code.htm.
Class Presentation: Each student will present an analysis of a selection
from the media—e.g., a medieval manuscript (facsimile online), an early book
(facsimile), a television program, an advertisement, a music video, an digital
artwork—to discuss with the class. Power point or other visual and auditory
media should be used for support. Group presentations are encouraged.
Late Work: Late papers or other late assignments will be
downgraded in accordance with the degree of lateness. Missed class work may not be made up unless
absence is approved in advance by the instructor.
Attendance: Regular attendance and participation are required;
they make up a significant part of the grade (see below).
Course Requirements and
Grades:
1) Reading/viewing responses and class participation (including in-class writing assignments, discussion,
etc.) 20% of final grade;
2) Three 1,000 word (minimum) essays (20% apiece) 60%;
3) Presentation, 20%;
4)
Film
Night, Wednesday, HC 114 7:00—9:45: you must view the assigned films each week
to be prepared for class discussion; I have arranged this weekly session to
allow the class to view films together; if you cannot attend, please make sure
that you see the films on your own time before the class where it is to be
disussed; on Film Night we’ll watch the films for the next week’s assignments; films are on library reserve under PHI
4930: Media Philosophy.
5) Numerical
and Letter Grades: these values apply to all assignments listed in 1-6 above;
your final grade for the semester will be determined by the same criteria.
100-94= A
93-90 = A-
89-87 = B+
86-84 = B
83-80 = B-
79-77 = C+
76-74 = C
73-70 = C-
69-67 = D+
66-64 = D
63-60 = D-
59-0 = F
6) Check
system of holistic grading when used:
√+++ = 100
√++ = 95
√+(+) = 90
√+ = 85
√(+) = 80
√ = 75
√- = 70
√-- = 65
Required Texts:
Adorno, Theodor, The Culture Industry
Eisenstein,
Hansen, Mark, New
Philosophy for New Media
Kittler, Friedrich, Gramophone,
Film, Typewriter
Manovich, Lev The Language of New
Media
McLuhan, Marshall, Quentin Fiore, The
Medium is the Massage
Rentschler, Eric, Ministry
of Illusion : Nazi Cinema and Its Afterlife
Trinh T. Minh-ha, The
Digital Film Event
Films: Film Night, Wednesday, HC 114 7:00—9:45
Dunning, George, Yellow
Submarine (The Beatles, 1968)
Frontline, The Persuaders
Gilliam, Terry, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Hegedus, Chris, The War
Room (1993)
Hitchcock, Alfred, Alfred
Hitchcock Presents
Linklater, Richard, Waking Life
Ley, Robert Television
Under The Swastika: The History of Nazi Television
Svankmajer, Jan, Faust (1994)
Vertov, Dziga, Man
With the Movie Camera (1929)
von Baky, Josef Münchhausen (The
Adventures of Baron Munchausen)
Riefenstal, Leni, Das
Blaue Licht [videorecording] : eine Berglegende = The
blue light / von Leni Riefenstahl.
---. Olympia
[videorecording] / produced by Leni Riefenstahl.
Wachowski, Andy and Larry The Matrix (1999)
Key Links:
A philosophical
perspective on media philosophy.
Krzysztof
Wodiczko: Projections
Web Dictionary of Cybernetics
and Systems
Useful News Media
Sources:
Al-Jazeera
Retrospective: A bin Laden Special
FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
Frontline World:
India, Starring Osama bin Laden
Haaretz Daily Newspaper (Israel)
Le
Monde Diplomatique English Language Edition, in FAU Electronic Journals via EzProxy
List of Addional Texts
& Reserve Readings:
Adorno, Theodor. Critical Models 0231076355 Columbia UP
Benjamin, Walter. “The Function of the Work of
Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Selected Writings, Vol. 3,
1935-1938, pp. 99-133; online version "The
Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction";
---. Selections from The
Burke, Peter. A Social
History of Knowledge: From Gutenberg to Diderot
Brennan, Bonnie and Hanno
Hardt, Picturing the Past: Media, History, and Photography (The History of
Communication)
Burnett, Ron, How Images
Think 0262025493 MIT
Diringer, David, The Book Before Printing
Eisenstein,
Flusser. Towards a Philosophy of Photography
Friday. Aesthetics & Photography
Habermas. Juergen, The
Theory of Communicative Action, 2. vols.
Hansen, Mark, New
Philosophy for the New Media 0262083213 MIT
Hayles, N. Katherine. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in
Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics
Illich, Ivan. In the Vineyard
of the Text
Irwin, William. The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of
the Real
Jarvie, Ian. Philosophy
of the film : epistemology, ontology, aesthetics (on
library reserve)
Kellner, Douglas. Media
Culture: Cultural Studies, Identity and Politics Between
the Modern and the Postmodern
Kittler, Friedrich. Discourse
Networks 1800/1900
---. Grammophone, Film, Typewriter
Koyre, Alexandre, From the
Closed World to the Infinite Universe
Kroker, Arthur, The Will to Technology & the Culture of
Nihilism: Heidegger, Nietzsche, Marx
Landow, George P. Hypertext
2.0: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology (Parallax -
Re-Visions of Culture and Society)
Landy, Marcia, The Historical Film: History & Memory in Media
Mander, Jerry. Four
Arguments for the Elimination of Television
Manovich, Lev. The
Language of New Media
McLuhan, Marshall, The Gutenberg Galaxy
---. The Medium is the Massage
Mead,
Margaret. The
study of culture at a distance
/ edited by Margaret Mead and Rhoda Métraux ; with an introduction by William O. Beeman.
Moore, Michael. Fahrenheit
9/11 (2004)
Oshii, Mamoru. Ghost
in the Shell (1996)
Paul, Christina. Digital Art 0500203679 Thames &
Hudson
Poster, Mark. The Mode of
Information
Rodowick, David Norman, Reading the Figural, Or, Philosophy After the
New Media (Post-Contemporary Interventions) 0822327228 Duke UP
Riefenstal, Leni. Triumph
of the Will (1934)
Ryan,
Marie-Laure. Cyberspace
Textuality: Computer Technology and Literary Theory
Sontag, Suzan, "Fascinating
Fascism"
---. On Photography
Taylor, Mark and Asa
Saarinen, Imagologies: Media Philosophy
Turing, Alan M., "Computing Machinery &
Intelligence", Mind (VOL. LIX. No.236. [October, 1950])
Wardrip-Fruin, Noah (Editor), Nick Montfort (Editor). The New Media Reader, (ISBN 0262232278, MIT Press 2003).
Wiener, Norbert. The Human
Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society
Online Journals:
Baudrillard Studies: http://www.ubishops.ca/baudrillardstudies/index.html
Ctheory: Theory,
Technology, & Culture: www.ctheory.net
Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies: Taylor & Francis Journals; sign in first at FAU
Library’s EZproxy.
Leonardo
Electronic Almanac MIT
Postmodern Culture: Project Muse via EZproxy
Some reference
interdisciplinary programs in media studies:
NYU's doctoral program in
Media Studies http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/mcc/doctoral/
and its Media Research Lab http://mrl.nyu.edu/;
MIT's Media Lab http://www.media.mit.edu/;
UT Austin's ACT Lab http://www.actlab.utexas.edu/;
U of Toronto's McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology http://www.utoronto.ca/mcluhan/; Communication & Culture at York and
Ryerson Universities: http://www.yorku.ca/comcult/;
Cultural Studies Ph.D. at University of Edinburg: http://www.culturalstudies.llc.ed.ac.uk/Programmes/PhD/phdstudents.html
; Culture & Theory Ph.D. at University of California Irvine: http://www.humanities.uci.edu/cultureandtheory/program/index.php;
Media Studies at University of Virginia: http://www.virginia.edu/mediastudies/about.html;
UCLA Digital Humanities & Media Studies: http://www.digitalhumanities.ucla.edu/;
MFA in Computer Arts and Animation at FAU www.fau.edu/animasters.
Sites of Interest:
"Talking Cure": a
Digital Media Project by Jeffrey Shaw
.
Syllabus: From Gutenberg to Cyberspace
Note: in-class responses my be required in any class period; they may not be made up
without a valid reason: please attend class regularly!
Week 1: Jan. 9
Course Introduction
The Gutenberg Revolution:
McLuhan, The Medium is the
Massage, An
Inventory of Effects; Kittler, Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, Translator’s
Introduction, Author’s Preface and Introduction; also see Turing, "Computing Machinery &
Intelligence" and the technical definition of a random walk whose only
rule is not to return to the place just left: Adorno, “Introduction,” pp. 1-28;
Recommended: Foucault on
Las Meninas; Foucault: The
Order of Things ch. 1. Handout: “Lacan, Kristeva, Wilden: A Communicative
Perspective on Psychoanalysis.”
Week 2: Jan. 16
The relationship between
communications revolution and knowledge:
Eisenstein, The Printing
Revolution in Early Modern Europe, Part 1, sections 1-3; Habermas, The
Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, Introduction & Ch. 1:
“Modernity’s Consciousness of Time,” in FAU Libraries Electronic Collection via
EZproxy; Web Toons posted by
Gia: A Rough Map
of the Internet . Film: Blade
Runner (Final Cut).
Week 3: Jan. 23
The consequences of
typography: shifts in perception,
identity, epistemology, the catalogue of knowledge (encyclopedia); Eisenstein,
continued, Part 1, ch.. 4; Part 2, ch.. 5; Theatrum
Orbis Terrarum. Kittler, Grammophone, Film, Typewriter, chapter
1: “Grammophone”; Images: Leonardo's Paintings;
Raphael's
Paintings; Velázquez’s
Paintings; Delacroix's
Liberty Leading the People; Seurat's Sunday Afternoon;
Wagner’s Das Rheingold, Prelude. Film:
FRONTLINE:
Growing Up Online;
Week 4: Jan. 30
Technology, Epistemology,
Ethics, Aesthetics: Eisenstein, Part II, secs. 6-8, and
Afterword; Theatrum
Orbis Terrarum; the scientific revolution and the media revolution; digital
cosmos: Mapping
the Universe; Metaphysical
Foundations of Modern Science, see diagram p. 48; Kittler, ch. 2: “Film”; Jugendstil; The
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; Manovich, Language,
“Personal Chronology,” pp. 3-17; Film:
Vertov, Man with a Movie Camera; Commentary
on Vertov; Biosketch of Vertov; Music and Vertov's Camera.
Week 5: Feb. 6 Essay I Due
The
Industrial-Communications Revolution:
Photography, Film, and the Dynamics of Knowledge
Benjamin, "The
Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"; Eugène
Atget’s photographs; Dada
Arts;;
Rentschler, Ministry of
Illusion, Introduction: “The Power of Illusions,” Sontag, "Fascinating
Fascism"; excerpts from The
Holy Mountain, the Mountain
Film (Bergfilm) genre; Leni
Riefenstahl, The Last of
the Nuba; fascist aesthetics and Art Deco; Film, the satiric
counterforce: Charlie
Chaplin, Modern Times.
Week 6: Feb. 13
Rentschler, Part 1: Fatal Attractions,
ch. 1, “A Legend for Modern Times: The Blue Light (1932).” Film: The
Blue Light.
For a ‘scary’ look at a range
of Nazi productions in various media see Third Reich Books.
Film: Triumph of the Will
(in part); .Chaplin, The Great Dictator; Globe Scene from The Great Dictator. Rentschler, Ministry of
Illusion, ch. 2, “Emotional Engineering: Hitler Youth Quex (1933)”; art by Caspar David Friedrich.
Week 7: Feb. 20
Film: Hitler Youth Quex; View
Hitlerjunge Quex online; Der Spiegel on
the Third Reich: The
Führer Myth: How Hitler Won Over the German People; Gregory Bateson, “An Analysis of the Film, Hitlerjunge Quex,” in The
Study of Culture at a Distance, pp. 331-350. "Total War" (Der
totale Krieg) 1943; Goebbels
"Sportpalast Speech" on Total War; Erich Ludendorff, and the
Origins of "Total War".
Film: Television
Under the Swastika; Adorno,
“How to Look at Television,” pp. 158-177.
Week 8: Feb. 27
Rentschler, Part III: “Specters & Shadows,” ch. 8, “Self-Reflexive Self-Destruction: Münchhausen
(1943)” Film: Münchhausen (The
Adventures of Baron Munchausen)
(also consider watching Terry Gilliam, The Adventures of
Baron Munchausen, on reserve); Adorno, “Freudian Theory and the Pattern of
Fascist Propaganda,” pp. 132-157.
Kittler, ch. 3: “Typewriter”;
Habermas, The
Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, ch. XI: “An Alternative Way
out of the Philosophy of the Subject: Communicative versus Subject-Centered
Reason”; Writing and the body: Franz Kafka, "In the
Penal Colony".
Spring Break: March 3-7
Week 9: Mar. 12 Essay II Due
Manovich, “What is New
Media?” pp. 18-61; Adorno, “The
Schema of Mass Culture,” pp. 61-97; Film:
Good Night
and Good Luck; Sen.
Joseph McCarthy; McCarthyism.
Films and pages for further reflection: The War Room (1993); Frontline:
Bill Moyers
Journal--Buying the War; Double-Edged
Media Sword; "'The
War Card": Center for Public Integrity; Bill Moyers
Essay on "The War Card"; the role of media in shaping the
“electropolis.” See Ron Burnett’s Critical Approaches to Culture +
Communications + Hypermedia; Media Philosopher Douglas
Kellner's Web Page.
Week 10: Mar. 19
Hansen, New Philosophy for
New Media, Introduction; Part 1: “From Image to Body,”
Jeffry Shaw, Web of Life;
Manovich, “The Interface,” pp. 62-115;
Film: The Matrix
Week 11: Mar. 26
Oral
Presentations & Discussion Cassidy & Wes
Hansen, ch. 2, “Framing the
Digital”; ch. 3, “The Automation of Sight and the Bodily Basis of Vision”;
Manovich, “Illusions,” pp. 176-211; Descartes’ Meditations,
Meditation I; Plato’s Allegory of the
Cave (Image); Plato's
Allegory, Republic VII; Plato's
Allegory & the Matrix.
Film, Waking Life.
Week 12: April 2
Oral
Presentations & Discussion Mark & Sean
Adorno,
“The Culture Industry Reconsidered,” pp. 98-106;); Adorno, “On the Fetish Character of Music,” pp.
29-60
Hansen, ch. 4, “Affect as
Interface: Confronting the Digital Face Image”; Hansen, ch. 5, “What’s Virtual
about VR? “Reality as a Body-Brain Achievement”
Film: Frontline: The
Persuaders | PBS
Week 13: Apr. 9
Oral
Presentations & Discussion 1) Lani, Sara, &
Jana; 2) Courtney & Michael
Krzysztof
Wodiczko the cinematic City, Krzysztof
Wodiczko: Projections;
Hansen, ch. 6, “The Affective Topology of New Media Art”;
Adorno, “Culture and Administration,” pp. 107-131.
Film: Dunning, George, Yellow Submarine (The Beatles, 1968)
Week 14: Apr. 16
Oral
Presentations & Discussion 1) Lauren
and Katy; 2) Jen
Hansen, ch. 7, “Body Times”;
Trinh, Digital Film Event, Part 1,
pp. 1-84.
Ctheory: Theory, Technology, Culture; Ctheory Multimedia
Film: Trinh,
The
Fourth Dimension; Jen’s Presentation, The
Battle of Algiers; for historical perspective see A
savage war of peace : Algeria
1954-1962 by Alistair Horne.
Week 15: Apr. 23 Essay III Due
4:00 PM
Oral Presentations & Discussion: 1) Allison and Andrew; 2) JoAnn
Trinh, Digital
Film Event, Part 2, pp. 85 to the end.
Week 16 Apr. 30 Exam Week
Oral
Presentations & Discussion as needed; Adorno, “Free Time,” and
“Resignation,” pp. 187-203.
Return of final work,
discussion.
