AS.211.216.21
New Media Narratives
Instructor: Amy Sheeran,
Class meets: TWF, 1-3:30 p.m.
Office hours: Tuesdays, 11:30-1 and by appointment
Course Introduction and Goals
This course focuses on new and digital media to consider how interactivity shapes, complicates, and challenges our understanding and experience of narratives. Through an examination of interactive fictions, including video games, visual novels, gamebooks, and text adventures, students will analyze narrative structure, particularly in terms of reader/player response and media hybridization. By considering interactivity in relation to so-called “traditional” narratives, such as novels and films, students will gain a better understanding of narrative theory. This course will prepare students for future, specialized courses in literature, film, and media studies.
Class
In class, you will sometimes listen to short, informal lectures. Mostly, however, you will be asked to participate and contribute, whether in class discussion or workshop. Please come to class ready to contribute. Much of what you learn in the course will occur to you in class discussions as you listen to each other’s ideas and enrich each other’s thought. Class is a joint endeavor, and in everything we do this semester your participation is essential.
Course Requirements, Assignments and Grading
All rubrics for graded assignments will be made available on the course site. The grading scale is as follows:
90-93=A-; 94-98=A; 98-100=A+ (Excellent)
80-82=B-; 83-87=B; 88-89=B+ (Good; Very Good)
70-72=C-; 73-77=C; 78-79=C+ (Satisfactory)
60-62=D-; 63-67=D; 68-69=D+ (Passing)
Attendance:
Class attendance is mandatory. Students are permitted two absences to be used at their discretion. Any additional unexcused absences will result in a two percentage–point deduction to the final grade. In exceptional circumstances (illness, family emergency, etc.) students will be granted an excused absence.
Participation (20%):
Students are expected to participate actively in class discussions, demonstrating a thorough and thoughtful reading of the selections for that session. Students are expected to bring the readings to class and be prepared to cite them to support arguments. Attendance is not equivalent to participation; students should be able to contribute meaningfully to the discussion. No cell phones may be used in class, and laptops and tablets should be used only for the purposes of this course.
Seminar leader (10%):
Each student will lead seminar discussion for one assigned reading. The leader should research his or her assigned readings and be prepared to introduce students to the author(s), relevant theoretical movements, and historical context. They should prepare discussion questions that will direct our reading, and be ready to ask follow-up questions, keep the class on topic, and recap the class's progress.
Close reading papers (40%):
Students will write three 3-page analyses, due on the dates listed below in the reading schedule. In each paper, students will select one text from that week (approximately a three-week period) and perform a close textual analysis that builds into an argument about the work as a whole. No outside sources should be used, but brief, illuminating references to other course readings are permitted. Students should rely on their own analysis—not summary—to interpret the text. All papers should use MLA citation format; be double-spaced; use a standard, 12-point font; and have one-inch margins.
Final presentation (30%):
The final, 12- to 15-minute presentation considers a particular example of new media of your choosing in light of the course readings. You’ll present your source to the class, explain its relevance to course themes, and offer an interpretation of the source itself. The presentation must be informative, persuasive, and engaging, but it can take a variety of formats.
Academic Integrity
All work in this course must be the students' own. Students are responsible for familiarizing themselves with the university's ethics policy. The use of online translators, native speakers, or advanced Spanish-speakers as editors is strictly prohibited. If students have any concerns about proper citation techniques, they are strongly encouraged to consult with the instructor prior to submitting the assignment.
Disability Accommodation Requests
Students with disabilities who require special accommodation, or students who believe they may have a disability that requires special accommodation, should contact the office of student disability services. This office will provide documentation to the instructor, who will make any necessary arrangements.
Course Materials
All course readings will be made available as .pdfs on the course Blackboard site. Many of the books we use are, additionally, available online through the JHU library’s website. In class and out of class, we will also be examining particular examples of new media, including hypertext novels, video games, and visual novels. I will make these available to students, or will coordinate their rental through the JHU Digital Media Center.
Reading Schedule
Please note that this reading schedule is subject to change at the discretion of the instructor. The material listed for each section should be read prior to class that day.
WEEK 1: What is a Narrative?
Session 1, 6/28: Course introduction
Session 2, 6/29:Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the Folktale, selections; Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, selections
Session 3, 7/1:Gilles Deleuze, The Movement Image and The Time-Image, selections
WEEK 2: Digital Narratives
Session 4, 7/5: Lev Manovich, "Cinema and Digital Media" (1996); Jeffrey Shaw, "Movies after Film: The Digitally Expanded Cinema"
Session 5, 7/6: Janet H: Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck, excerpts
Session 6, 7/8: Daniel Punday, “From Synesthesia to Multimedia: How to Talk about New Media Narrative;”HartmutKoenitz, Interactive Digital Narrative: History, Theory and Practice selections
WEEK 3: Video Games
Session 7, 7/12: Ian Bogost, How to Talk About Video Games, selections
Session 8, 7/13: Bryan Alexander, The New Digital Storytelling: Creating Narratives with New Media, selections; Steven E. Jones, The Meaning of Video Games: Gaming and Textual Studies, selections
Session 9, 7/15: Tom Bissell, Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter
WEEK 4: Mediation, Representation
Session 10, 7/19: Roland Barthes, Elements of Semiology, selections;Marshall McLuhan, "The Medium is the Message"
Session 11, 7/20: Scott Rettberg, “All Together Now: Hypertext, Collective Narratives, and Online Collective Knowledge Communities;”Stuart Hall, “The Work of Representation”
Session 12, 7/22: Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century;"Iswari P. Pandey, LaxmanPandey, and AngishShreshtha,“Transcultural Literacies of Gaming”
WEEK 5:
Session 13, 7/26: Final presentations
Session 14, 7/27: Final presentations
Session 15, 7/29: Course wrap-up