Syllabus

Note: Required readings not linked to in this page will be in the reader.

Week 1

17 Jan: Introduction: Why “History of Information?”

Geoff’s Slides

Paul’s Slides

19 Jan: Talking about information
Paul’s Slides

Week 2

24 Jan: Technological Determinism
Paul’s Slides

Required reading:

  • Heilbroner, Robert L. 1967. “Do Machines Make History?”, Technology and Culture. 8(3): 335-345.
  • Williams, Raymond. 1974. “The Technology and the Society,” pp 1-25 in Television: Technology and Cultural Form. London: Fontana.

Additional material:

26 Jan: The First Technologies of Information: Writing Systems
Geoff’s Slides

Required reading:

  • Marshack, Alexander. 1999. “The Art and Symbols of Ice-Age Man,” in David Crowley, ed. Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society. Allyn & Bacon. Pp. 5-14.
  • Robinson, Andrew. 1999. “The Origins of Writing.” In David Crowley, ed. Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society. Allyn & Bacon. Pp. 36-42.

Week 3

31 Jan: Cultural Effects of Writing
Geoff’s Slides

Required reading:

Additional material:

2 Feb: Manuscript Culture
Paul’s Slides

Required reading:

NOTE: We are now going back to “primary texts,” texts that discuss the changes we are interested in as they happened. As you read these texts, one almost 2500 years old, the other more than 500 years old, ask yourself whether these have anything to tell us about information in the modern world. Be prepared to discuss your reactions in class. (The Trithemius is a “parallel text” with Latin facing English. Only those fluent in Latin need read the Latin pages.)

  • Plato. 1973 [c. 360 bce]. Phaedrus & the Seventh & Eighth Letters. W. Hamilton, trans. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Read “Prelude,” pp. 21-26 and then “The inferiority of the written to the spoken word,” & “Recapitulation and conclusion,” pp. 95-103.
  • Trithemius, Johannes. 1974 [1492]. In Praise of Scribes. R. Behrendt, ed. Lawrence, KA: Coronado Press. Read Chapters I-III, V-VII, XIV.

Week 4

7 Feb: Print Revolution
Paul’s Slides

Required reading:

  • Elizabeth Eisenstein, ‘The Emergence of Print Culture in the WestJournal of Communication, Winter (1980): 99-106.
  • Adrian Johns’ “Personal Note” in “Historical Perspectives on the Circulation of Information,” American Historical Review 116(5) (December 2011): 1392-1435, you are only required to read the comments by Johns in this one section..

Additional material:

9 Feb: Scientific Revolution
Paul’s Slides

Required reading:

NOTE: The Royal Society was founded in England in 1660. It still exists today. 2010 was its 350th anniversary– and claims to be the world’s oldest scientific society. Thomas Sprat (1635-1713), the author of the work you have to read, was a student of one of the founders. He joined the Society in 1663 and was asked to write the Society’s history. In this book, then, we have a contemporary, insider’s account of the founding of a very influential society, one that people argue was at the center of the “scientific revolution.” Because it was written in the seventeenth century, however, the text is a challenge. But it is manageable and even rewarding with patience. Take it slowly–the section you have to read, pages 60-79, is not very long. If you keep going, what is at first confusing may become clear (or irrelevant). Mark up passages that don’t make sense (as well as those that interest you) to discuss in class, but keep on reading. As you read, ask yourself how much this does or does not resemble what we think of as modern science.

If you go to Early English Books Online, you will be able to see the pages as they appeared in the original book.

Additional material:

Week 5

14 Feb: Emergence of the Public Sphere
Geoff’s Slides

Required reading:

16 Feb: Reference Books and the Organization of Knowledge

Geoff’s slides

Required reading:

  • McArthur, Tom. 1986.  Worlds of Reference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ch. 13, “Reference and Revolution” and Ch. 14, “Thematic Lexicography,” pp. 128-138 in the reader.
  • d’Alembert, Jean Le Rond. 1751. Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedie of Diderot, Selections from Part I. (Entire text can be found here.)
  • Book of plates from Diderot’s Encylopedie at archive.org. Slide hand icon at bottom to browse.

Week 6

21 Feb: Popular Print and Popular Literacy in the 18th Century

Blake’s slides

Required reading:

23 Feb: The Rise of Literacy and Standard Language

Geoff’s slides

Required reading:

  • McArthur, Tom. 1986.  Worlds of Reference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chs. 12, “The Legislative Urge” and 14, “Thematic Lexicography,” pp. 121-127 and 139-143 in the reader.
  • Johnson, Samuel. 1755. “Preface” to the Dictionary.
  • Johnson, Samuel. 1785 (1755). A Dictionary of the English Language. Slide hand icon at the bottom and page forward/back until you come to the definition of dictionary.)

Week 7

28 Feb: Unnoticed Revolutions? Time and Money
Paul’s Slides

Required reading:

1 Mar: Literacy and the 19th Century Public Sphere

Geoff’s slides

Required reading:

  • Schudson, Michael. 2003. “Where News Came From: The History of Journalism,” Ch. 4 in The Sociology of News, Norton. Pp. 64-89.

Additional material:

  • Mindich, David. 1998. “Nonpartisanship,” pp. 40-63 in Just the Facts: How “Objectivity” Came to Define American Journalism. New York: NYU Press.
  • Stone, Lawrence. 1969. “Literacy and Education in England 1640-1900.” Past & Present 42: 69-139 (necessary to read only to p. 102).

Week 8

6 Mar: Information as Property
Paul’s Slides

Required reading:

8 Mar: Communications Revolution
Paul’s Slides

Required reading:

Additional material:

  • Friedlander, Amy. 1995. ‘Telegraphy: The Precursor to Telephony, 1837-1873′ pp 10-21 in Amy Friedlander, Natural Monopoly and Universal Service: Telephones and Telegraphs in the U.S. Communications Infrastructure, 1837-1940. Washington, D.C. CNRI.
  • Fischer, Claude S. 1992. Chapter 2, The Telephone in AmericaThe Social History of the Telephone to 1940. University of California Press. Berkeley. Pp 33-59.

Week 9

13 Mar: Technologies of the Image

Geoff’s slides

Required reading:

  • Newhall, Beaumont. 1964. “Prints from Paper,” “Portraits for the Million,” and “The Faithful Witness,” pp. 32-57 in The History of Photography, From 1839 to the Present Day. New York: Museum of Modern Art.
  • Sontag, Susan. 1977. On Photography. New York: Farrar, Straus & and Giroux. Chapter 1, “In Plato’s Cave.” The photographs discussed in the chapter can be found here: http://www.gcordon.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/chapter1.htm

Additional Materials:

15 Mar: Politics and Propaganda

Geoff’s Slides

Required reading:

  • Marlin, Randall, 2002. “History of Propaganda,” pp. 62-94 in Propaganda and the Ethics of Persuasion, Toronto: Broadview Press.

Recommended:

  • Watch the first 10-minute segment of “Divide and Conquer,” one of the “Why We Fight” films that Frank Capra made for the Office of War Information in WWII. (If you want more, there are the other segments on this page.) Watch this brief video on the background of these films.
  • Watch the first 7-10 minutes of Leni Riefenstahl’s “Triumph of the Will,” and browse the rest to get the flavor of the rallies — it’s pretty repetitive.

Week 10

20 Mar: Advertising
Paul’s Slides

Required reading:

  • McKendrick, Neil. 1982. “Josiah Wedgwood and the Commercialization of the Potteries,” pp. 100-145 in McKendrick et al. Birth of a Consumer Society. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
  • Johnson, Samuel. 1761. [On Advertising], The Idler 40 (Jan 20): 224-229.

Additional material:

22 Mar: MIDTERM EXAM

Week 11 – SPRING BREAK (NO CLASS)

Week 12

3 Apr: Computer Revolution
Paul’s Slides

Required reading:

  • Babbage, Charles. 1832. “Registering Operations” and “On the Division of Mental Labour,” chapters 8 & 19 in On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures. [Google Books edition]
  • Campbell-Kelly, Martin & William Aspray. 1996. “‘Babbage’s Dream Comes True,” (pp. 53-104) in Martin Campbell-Kelly & William Aspray, Computer: A History of the Information Machine. New York: Basic Books.

Additional material:

5 Apr: Broadcast
Geoff’s Slides

Required reading:

  • Czitrom, Daniel J. 1982. “The Ethereal Hearth: American Radio from Wireless through Broadcasting, 1892-1940.” in Media and the American Mind. University of North Carolina Press. Pp. 60-88.

Additional material:

  • Gitlin, Todd. 2001. “Supersaturation, Or, The Media Torrent And Disposable Feeling,” Ch. 1 of Media Unlimited, Metropolitan Books. Pp. 12-70.

Week 13

10 Apr: Storage and Search
Paul’s Slides

Required reading:

Additional material:

12 Apr: Advent of the Internet
Geoff’s slides

Required reading:

  • Berners-Lee, Tim. 2000. “info.cern.ch.” Chapters 1-3 in Weaving the Web. New York City: HarperCollins.

Also, readings for class assignment.

Additional material:

Week 14

17 Apr: Disintermediation, Dematerialization, Disaggregation and Disruption!

Geoff’s slides

NOTE: Bring to class a large broadside newspaper (e.g., the NY Times, the Wall Street Journal)

Required reading:

Additional:

19 Apr: Social Implications of the Internet I

Paul’s Slides

Required reading:

Additional:

  • Cairncross, Frances. 1995. “The Death of Distance,” The Economist 336 (7934 30 September): 16-17.
  • Hanford, Emily. 2012. “Don’t Lecture Me.”

Week 15

24 Apr: Social Implications of the Internet II
Geoff’s Slides 

Required reading:

26 Apr: Social Implications of the Internet III, course wrap

  • no readings

FINAL EXAM: MAY 9 FROM 11:30-2:30

  1. […] course reader will be available at Copy Central on Bancroft and the syllabus is online. We may make adjustments to the syllabus throughout the semester, so please keep […]

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