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Instructor:

Dr. Diane Gromala

[email:gromala@sfu.ca] IMPORTANT: title your emails, beginning with <810>

to ensure that they will not get lost among massive amounts of email effluvia.

MEETING HOURS: Email me to arrange a mutually convenient meeting time.

Good times to meet are T&Th afternoons (1-4pm), but other times are possible.

If schedules become too hectic, we could conduct a meeting via skype: dr.gromala

Teaching Assistant:

Meehae Song

[email:meehaes@sfu.ca] IMPORTANT: title your emails, beginning with <810>

Office hours:

Dr. Gromala can be located M-Th in the BioMedia Lab or her 14th floor office (across from Desiree's, in the admin area).

Meehae Song will be available M-Th. Please email her to book a time.

Location:

SFU Surrey

Tuesdays, 5:30–8:20pm, Room 3150

Course Description:

Introduction

In this course, we review theory, history and current research in the field of new media.

The core concern of this course is the identification and understanding of the aesthetic principles and the poetics of New Media design and experience. You will then apply or interrogate these principles in your critical analyses of New Media artifacts, experiences, environments and phenomena. A review of the histories of technology, previous moments of media emergence, and social and cultural movements will provide some aspects of context. Outcomes will include but are not limited to methods of exploration and analysis in order to better understand, design, create and assess current and future developments in emergent technologies and media.

Weekly Class Preparation

Weekly preparation for class includes intensive or “close” critical readings, assessing authors’ methodologies, noting the evidence provided, giving considerable thought to the interpretations presented by others and synthesizing the implication of the arguments with the course as a whole.

Leading Class Discussions

This course requires you to read, reflect and then review your findings with class members. Everyone will read the required works and will be prepared to discuss them. In addition, each week, 1 or 2 people will be responsible for leading the class discussion. You will be graded on both the quality of the discussions you lead, and on your general participation in the intellectual activity of the class.

When you lead a class discussion or deliver a presentation, do not simply regurgitate the main points. Select and summarize a couple of what you consider to be the most salient points – ones that will be most generally usable as scholarly citations in the analysis of new media works of art. We are looking for citations that directly identify and explicate the poetics of New Media, not an exhaustive or comprehensive list of all the ideas that your assigned articles offer.

On a weekly basis, it is also important that you bring to class and discuss examples from each reading (or inspired elsewheres) and apply them to your analyses of works of new media.

Class Mailing List [email:iat810-fall2010@sfu.ca]

Final Paper:

The final paper for our class will be a close reading of an exemplary New Media experience, artifact, phenomenon or site. A close reading is a careful, sustained, detailed, interpretive analysis (think autopsy). The New Media object or experience must be interactive and may include some sense of narrative or story. The purpose of the final paper is for you to demonstrate what you have learned in class through writing and refining (and refining again) an in-depth paper. Thus, you should identify, analyze, and discuss the poetics of the new media experience, artifact or site by focusing on a particular position, theme or idea. Your analysis should use concepts drawn from the course readings. Part of the work for this assignment is for you to identify one or more academic venues for publication of your paper. Should you choose to pursue publication, we will follow the standards for authorship attribution that are outlined in SIAT’s graduate student document. Two milestones, including an oral presentation, will be scheduled before the end of November. Your final paper is due one week before the end of the semester.

Reference on Close Reading

Van Looy, Jan and Baetans, Jan. "Close Reading New Media: Analyzing Electronic Literature," (pgs. 8-13), Leuven University Press, Leuven, Belgium, 2003

Evaluation

Lead Presentations 25% [this grade includes both explication & examples/application]

Class Participation 25% [includes in-class experiments]

Final Paper 50%

Extra credit for well-considered risk-taking can be earned, but not if it is a form of avoiding other assignments. Presentations, assignments and the final paper may assume a form other than what is outlined above, as long as you submit a written proposal and gain written approval from Dr. Gromala by Halloween.

University and SIAT policies on academic honesty apply to this course. The SFU Policy can be found at: http://www.sfu.ca/policies/teaching/index.htm [1].

All course requirements must be fulfilled in order to pass the course. All requirements are due on the date and time assigned during class meetings or on the course wiki.

Course procedures (including topics, content, assignments, due dates and evaluation) in this course outline are subject to change. Any such changes will be noted in class and on the wiki. You are responsible for tracking and working within any such changes in procedures.

Course Topics and Readings

Will be posted on the wiki by noon on September 14, 2010. READING LIST SUBJECT TO CHANGE BASED ON NEEDS OF THE CLASS