Literary Computing, Spring 2010
English 503: Special Studies I
CSC 589a: Topics in Scientific Computing
Thursdays 10:00-12:50, CLEA D131
Instructor: Ray Siemens, x7272, siemens@uvic.ca
Co-Instructors: Cara Leitch, Meagan Timney, Bridget Sweeney

Description

An accepted foundation for work in humanities computing is knowledge representation, which draws on the field of artificial intelligence and seeks to produce models of human understanding that are tractable to computation. In activities of the computing humanist, knowledge representation manifests itself in issues related to archival representation and textual editing, high-level interpretive theory and criticism, and protocols of knowledge transfer—all as modelled with computational techniques. In turn, the results of modelling the activities of the humanist, and the output of humanistic achievement, with the assistance of the computer are found in what are often considered to be the exemplary tasks associated with humanities computing: the representation of archival materials, the analysis or critical inquiry originating in those materials, and the communication of the results of these tasks.
    This course focuses on the second of these areas, critical analysis, and the objective of the course is to examine literary critical practices via computational processes that model, apply, and advance them. Historically based in practices associated with close reading and New Criticism, computing tools with application to literary studies have recently demonstrated to have impact far beyond these critical practices, and have—via large corpus analysis, visualisation techniques, and other methods—suggested innovative critical approaches.  Further, application of such practices have significant impact upon creative processes both traditional and new.
    In this course, the intellectual traditions associated with a computational approach to literary criticism are examined; the centre of such approaches, the electronic text, is studied; and the application of computational techniques to extant and emerging schools of literary criticism and literary practice are explored.
 

Requirements

• Course Readings, all of which are on reserve in the library, in the Blackwell Companion to Digital Humanities, the Blackwell Companion to Digital Literary Studies, or online (as below).  The two Blackwell companions have been ordered for the bookstore, and purchase of some electronic resources may be required; details will be discussed in class.
• Ongoing Involvement in [1] a Reading Group and [2] a New Media Work (of interactive fiction, digital poetry, and/or narrative-oriented computer gaming).  Purchase of the new media work may be required; details will be discussed in class.
• Completion of Assignments:
  • Reading group [1] presentations and [2] outlines (several: 30%, due throughout the term, as below).
    • Presentations are roughly 10 minutes in length per item.  Ideally, they will abstract and present an engaging overview of the assigned reading, and will identify useful comparison points among readings, accumulating cumulatively, over the course of the term.
    • Outlines: provide a point-by-point overview of the presentation.  These are due on the Tuesday before the presentation, and will be submitted to me via electronic mail at the address above at that time. If you would like comment on the outline, please submit no later than Monday evening.
    • Note: to suit the particular needs of this section, presentations will be the responsibility of assigned individuals, with the class as a whole functioning as reading group.  As such, attendance at all meetings of the seminar is required for a passing grade to be issued for participation in the reading groups.
  • Individual project report (30%)
    • New Media project (assigned week 3, due during class in weeks 9-13):  A work of interactive fiction, digital poetry, or narrative-oriented computer gaming will be chosen (with equal distribution across all three of these categories) and will be the subject of a 30 minute presentation that will [a] discuss it in the context of our seminar's inquiry of literary computing, [b] demonstrate the new media object to the class, and [c] evaluate it as literature.  Outlines of your presentation are due on the Monday before the presentation, and will be submitted to me via electronic mail at the address above at that time. If you would like comment on the outline, please submit no later than Monday morning.
  • Research paper (40%): A 10-page research paper, with annotated bibliography, on a topic of your choosing as it pertains to the matter of the course.  Please discuss the topic of your paper with me, during office hours, before week 11.  The research paper is due at our last meeting.
  • Note:  All assignments must be completed, and a passing grade received in each, for a passing grade in this course to be issued.

Policies

• Policies governing our interaction in the course are adopted from that of extant bodies, as below:
  • English Department's Graduate Handbook:
    • Attendance (section 8.2)
    • Grading and Marking (sections 8.4 and 8.5)
      • With reason, late papers will be accepted with penalty, and in extenuating circumstances extensions will be granted.
      • Letter grade and percentage equivalents, department-adopted standard: A+ (90-100), A (85-89), A- (80-84), B+ (76-79), B (68-75).
  • UVic Calendar (2009-10): Plagiarism and Academic Integrity

Outline

• Week 1 (January 7): Introduction
  • Introduction to the course; discussion of humanities computing and literary computing.
  • Readings:
    • Schreibman, Susan, Ray Siemens, and John Unsworth.  "Introduction." In Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, and John Unsworth, eds.  The Blackwell Companion to Digital Humanities.  Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.
    • Hockey, Susan. "The History of Humanities Computing."  In The Blackwell Companion to Digital Humanities.
    • Rommel, Thomas.  "Literary Studies."  In The Blackwell Companion to Digital Humanities.
    • Liu, Alan. "Imagining the New Media Encounter." In Ray Siemens and Susan Schreibman, eds. The Blackwell Companion to Digital Literary Studies. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007.
    • Further readings:
      • McCarty, Willard.  "What is Humanities Computing: Toward a Definition of the Field." (1998). 
      • Unsworth, John.  "What is Humanities Computing and What is Not?" Forum Computerphilologie 4 (2002). 
• Section 1: Text and its Representation
  • Week 2 (January 14): Text, as Representation and as Represented Object
    • Action: Discuss New Media project.
    • Introduction to text-encoding: history and basic issues.
    • Discussion of manuscript and printed artifacts: the relation of form and  content; problematics of representing the non-linguistic indicators of meaning.  Survey of encoding languages; encoding as intellectual discipline, with relation to traditional disciplinary concerns; descriptive and computational grammars.
    • Readings, for group reading evaluation and discussion:
      • [Group 1] Renear, Allen. "Text Encoding."  In The Blackwell Companion to Digital Humanities
      • [Group 2] Wittig, Susan. "The Computer and the Concept of Text."  Computers and the Humanities 11 (1978): 211-215.
      • [Group 3] Sperberg-McQueen, C. M. "Text in the Electronic Age: Textual Study and Text Encoding with Examples from Medieval Texts."  Literary and Linguistic Computing 6 (1991): 34-46.
      • [Group 4] Fraistat, Neil, and Steve Jones.  "The Poem and the Network: Editing Poetry Electronically."  In John Unsworth, Lou Burnard, and Katherine O'Brien O'Keefe, eds. Electronic Textual Editing.  New York: MLA, 2006.
  • Week 3 (January 21): Encoding as Intellectual Activity
    • Survey of encoding languages; encoding as intellectual discipline, with relation to traditional disciplinary concerns; descriptive and computational grammars.
      • [Group 1]  Sapir, Edward. "II: The Elements of Speech."  In Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech.  New York: Harcourt, 1921.  Repr.  Bartleby.com, 2000.
      • [Group 2 ] Thorne, James Peter.  "Models for Grammars."  179-205 in Teodor Shanin, ed.  The Rules of the Game: Cross-Disciplinary Essays on Models in Scholarly Thought. London: Tavistock, 1972.
      • [Group 3] Lavagnino, John.  "Completeness and Adequacy in Text Encoding."  63-76 in Richard J. Finneran, ed.  The Literary Text in the Digital Age.  Ann Arbor: U Michigan P, 1996.
      • [Group 4 ] Driscoll, Matthew.  "Levels of Transcription."  In Electronic Textual Editing.
      • Further readings:
        • Lavagnino, John.  "When not to use TEI."  In Electronic Textual Editing.
        • McGann, Jerome.  "Marking Texts of Many Dimensions."  In The Blackwell Companion to Digital Humanities.
           
• Section 2: Academic Applications in Literary Studies
  • Week 4 (January 28): Projects
    • Discussion of scholarly digitisation and encoding projects, to which groups will respond:
      • [Group 1, response] An Analytical Onomasticon to the Metamorphoses of Ovid.
        • McCarty, Willard. "Introduction."  An Analytical Onomasticon to the Metamorphoses of Ovid.
      • [Group 2, response] The Orlando Project.
        • Brown, Susan, Patricia Clements, et al.  "Tag Team: Computing, Collaborators, and the History of Women's Writing in the British Isles." Technologising the Humanities/ Humanitising the Technologies.  R. G. Siemens and William Winder, eds. [A special issue of] Computing in the Humanities Working Papers and Text Technology 8 (1998): 37-52.   Rptd. Digital Studies / Le champ numérique (2008).
        • Brown, Susan, Patricia Clements, et al.  "Dates and ChronStructs:  Dynamic Chronology in the Orlando Project."  Literary and Linguistic Computing 15 (2000): 265-289.
      • [Group 3, response] Women Writers Project.
        • Flanders, Julia. "The Women Writers Project: A Digital Anthology." In Electronic Textual Editing.
        • Flanders, Julia. "Editorial Methodology and the Electronic Text."  Presented on the panel "Electronic Texts and Textuality," NASSR, Boston, 1996.
        • Flanders, Julia. "Methodology for Transcription and Editing."  Women Writers Project.
      • [Group 4, response] The Rossetti Archive.
        • McGann, Jerome."The Rationale of Hypertext."  (1995.)   In Radiant Textuality: Literature after the World Wide Web. New York: Palgrave, 2001. 53-74.
        • Stauffer, Andrew M.  "Tagging the Rossetti Archive: Methodologies and Praxis."  Informatique et Statistique dans les Sciences Humaines 33 (1997).  Repr. Journal of Electronic Publishing 4 (1998).
  • Week 5 (February 4): Electronic Scholarly Editions
    • Readings, for group reading evaluation and discussion:
      • [Group 1] Price, Kenneth. "Electronic Scholarly Editions." In The Blackwell Companion to Digital Literary Studies.
      • [Group 2] Faulhaber, Charles B. "Textual Criticism in the 21st Century." Romance Philology 45 (1991): 123-148.
      • [Group 3] Robinson, Peter, and Hans Walter Gabler, eds. "Introduction."  Making Texts for the Next Century.  [A special issue of] Literary and Linguistic Computing 15.1 (April 2000). AND Robinson, Peter.  "The One Text and the Many Texts."  Literary and Linguistic Computing 15 (2000): 5-14.
      • [Group 4] McCarty, Willard. "A Network With a Thousand Entrances: Commentary in an Electronic Age?"  359-402 in Roy K. Gibson and Christina Shuttleworth Kraus, eds.  The Classical Commentary: Histories, Practices, Theory.  Leiden: Brill, 2002.
      • Further Readings:
        • Nell-Smith, Martha. "Electronic Scholarly Editing." In The Blackwell Companion to Digital Humanities.
  • Week 6 (February 11): Electronic Scholarly Editions / Analysis
    • Readings, for group reading evaluation and discussion:
      • [Group 1] Siemens, Ray.  "Unediting and Non-Editions."  In The Theory (and Politics) of Editing.  Anglia 119.3 (2001): 423-455.  [A reprinting, with additional  introduction of "Shakespearean Apparatus?  Explicit Textual Structures and the Implicit Navigation of Accumulated Knowledge."  Text: An Interdisciplinary Annual of Textual Studies 14.  Ann Arbor: U Michigan P, 2002.  209-240.  Electronic pre-print published in Surfaces 8 (1999): 106.1-34.]
      • [Group 2] Winder, William. "Texpert Systems." 159-66 in R.G. Siemens and William Winder, eds. Scholarly Discourse and Computing Technology: Perspectives on Pedagogy, Research, and Dissemination in the Humanities. [A special issue of] Text Technology 6.3 (1996) and Computing in the Humanities Working Papers (April 1997).  Rptd. Digital Studies / Le champ numérique (2008).
      • [Group 3] Bradley, John. "Text Tools." In The Blackwell Companion to the Digital Humanities.
      • [Group 4] Ramsay, Steve. "Algorithmic Criticism." In The Blackwell Companion to the Digital Literary Studies.
    • Further Readings:
      • Busa, Roberto."Concordances." 592-604 in Allen Kent and Harold Lancour, eds. Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science. New York: Marcel Dekker, 1971.
      • Lancashire, Ian, and Hardy Cook, eds.  "Introduction" [Sections 3 and 4,""Computer Applications" and "Electronic Edition and Encoding"].  Shake-speares Sonnets (1609).  (Toronto: Renaissance Electronic Texts, 1998).
  • Week 7 (February 18): Reading Break, no meeting
    
  • Week 8 (February 25): Analysis: Navigation, Deep Analysis, Visualisation
    • Readings and Software, for group reading evaluation and discussion:
      • [Group 1] Concordance
        • Watt, R. J. C.  Concordance.
        • Watt, R. J. C.  Web Concordances and Workbooks.
      • [Group 2] Navigation
        • Kartoo.  KartOO Visual Meta Search Engine.
        • Groxis.  Grokker2: Knowledge Management, Data Mining, and Information Mapping.
      • [Group 3] Deep Analysis
        • Burrows, John. "Textual Analysis."  In The Blackwell Companion to the Digital Humanities.
        • McCarty, Willard. "Method in Text-Analysis."
      • [Group 4] Visualisation
        • Paley, W. Bradford. TextArc.
        • Thinkmap.  The Visual Thesaurus: A Dictionary of the English Language.
        • Feinberg, Johnathan.  Wordle.
      • Readings for background:
        • Ball, C. "Automated Text Analysis: Cautionary Tales."  Literary and Linguistic Computing 9 (1994): 295-302.
        • Meister, J. C.  "Consensus ex machina? Consensus qua machina!" Literary and Linguistic Computing 10 (1995): 263-270.
      • For further consideration:
        • TAPoR Tools Portal
        • TAPoR Portal 'Recipes'

Section 3: Creative Applications Pertinent to Literary Studies

• Week 9 (March 4): Digital and Hypertext Fiction, 1 (Led by Cara Leitch)
  • New media project presentations [Presenter(s):  T B A]
  • Readings
    • Primary, select from among
      • Borges, Jorge Luis. "The Garden of Forking Paths." Also in The New Media Reader, Ed. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort. 29-34.
      • Joyce, Michael. Afternoon, A Story.
      • Ryman, Geoff. 253.
      • Bookchin, Natalie. The Intruder, adapted from the short story by Borges.
      • McCloud, Scott. The Parallelogram's Revenge.
      • —.Mimi's Last Coffee.  
      • Persoff, Ethan. A Dog and his Elephant.
      • Sloan, Robin. "Mr. Penumbra's Twenty-Four Hour Bookstore."
    • Secondary Readings, as explicit reference points for presentations, select from among earlier weeks' readings and the below:
      • Douglas, Jane Yellowlees. "What Interactive Narratives Do That Print Narratives Cannot." In The End of Books — Or Books Without End? Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2000. 37-62.
      • Dobson, T. M. "E(c)Lect(r)Ic Stories." English Quarterly 34.4 (2002): 53-63.
      • Drucker, Johanna. "Theory as Praxis: The Poetics of Electronic Textuality." Modernism/modernity 9.4 (2002): 683-91.
      • Hayles, Katherine N. "Deeper into the Machine: The Future of Electronic Literature." Culture Machine 5 (2003).
      • Landow, George P. "The Definition of Hypertext and Its History as a Concept." In Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992. 3-7.
      • —. "Michael Joyce's Afternoon: The Reader's Experience as Author." In Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992. 113-119.
      • McCloud, Scott. "Setting Course: A ‘Low’ Art Takes the High Road." In Reinventing Comics. New York: Perennial, 2000. 26-55.
      • —. "The Thing About Tools: Some Thoughts on Computers." In Reinventing Comics. 128-137.
      • Page, Adrian. "Constructing Xanadu: Towards a Poetics of Hypertext Fiction." The Question of Literature in Contemporary Theory. Ed. Elizabeth Beaumont Bissell. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2002. 174-189.
• Week 10 (March 11): Digital and Hypertext Fiction, 2 (Led by Meagan Timney)
  • New media project presentations [Presenter(s):  T B A]
  • Readings
    • Primary, select from among
      • Jackson, Shelley. Patchwork Girl.
      • Rock, Joellyn. The Vas(a)lisa Project.
      • Monfort, Nick. The Girl and the Wolf.
      • Blais, Joline, Keith Frank and Jon Ippolito.Fair E-Tales.
      • McCloud, Scott. The Right Number.
      • —. My Obsession With Chess.
    • Secondary Readings, as explicit reference points for presentations, select from among earlier weeks' readings and the below:
      • McCloud, Scott. "The Infinite Canvas: Digital Comics." In Reinventing Comics. 200-241.
      • —. "Through The Door: Digital Production." In Reinventing Comics. 138-153.
      • Ryan, Marie-Laure. "Hypertext: The Functions and Effects of Selective Interactivity." In Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. 204-224.
      • —. "Beyond Myth and Metaphor: Narrative in Digital Media." Poetics Today 23.4 (2002): 581-609.
      • Hayles, Katherine. "Flickering Connectivities in Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl: The Importance of Media-Specific Analysis." Postmodern Culture 10.2 (January 2000).
      • Larson, Jeanne. "Who's In Charge Here? A Response to Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl." New River Journal 3 (November 1997).
• Week 11 (March 18): Gaming and Electronic Narrative, 1
  • New media project presentations [Presenter(s):  T B A]
  • Readings
    • Primary, select from among
      • The Last Express. On Gametap.
      • Plotkin, Andrew. Shade. Author’s Webpage | Game File | Online Version (Note: Does not work on Firefox browsers.)
      • Barlow, Sam. Aisle. Game File |  Online Version
      • Short, Emily. Galatea. Author’s Webpage | Game File | Online Version
      • Schmidt, Dan. For A Change.  Author’s Webpage | Game File | Online Version 
    • Secondary Readings, as explicit reference points for presentations, select from among earlier weeks' readings and the below:
      • Kelman, Nic. "Introduction." In Video Game Art. New York: Assouline 2005. 14-23.
      • Bousfield, Nick. "Gaming on the Orient Express." The Escapist 42 (April 25, 2006).
      • Douglass, Jeremy. "Enlightening Interactive Fiction: Andrew Plotkin's Shade." In Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media. Ed. Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 2007.
      • Cadre, Adam. "Galatea."
• Week 12 (March 25): Gaming and Electronic Narrative, 2 (Led by Bridget Sweeney)
  • New media project presentations [Presenter(s):  T B A]
  • Readings
    • Primary, select from among
      • Civilization III. On Gametap.
      • Alter Ego.
      • Cadre, Adam. Photopia. Author’s Webpage |  Game File | Online Version
      • Finley, Ian. Exhibition. Game File |  Game File (executable version)
      • Montfort, Nick. Ad Verbum. Author’s Webpage | Game File | Online Version
    • Secondary Readings, as explicit reference points for presentations, select from among earlier weeks' readings and the below:
      • Kelman, Nic. "Imitation of Reality." In Video Game Art. New York: Assouline 2005. 282-307.
      • "Sandbox Games." Wikipedia.
      • "God Games." Wikipedia.
      • Frasca, Gonzalo. "Videogames of the Oppressed: Critical Thinking, Education, Tolerance, and Other Trivial Issues." In First Person: New Media as Story, Performance and Game. Ed. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2004. 85-94.
      • Cadre, Adam. "Review: Alter Ego." Reviews From Trotting Krips.
      • —. "The Photopia Phaq." Version 2.0. 1998.
      • McCarty, Willard. "Knowing True Things by What Their Mockeries Be: Modelling in the Humanities." Rptd. Digital Studies / Le champ numérique (2008).
      • Hayles, N. Katherine. "Simulating Narratives: What Virtual Creatures Can Teach Us." Critical Inquiry 26 (1999): 1-26.
      • Ebert-Kaiser:
        • Ebert, Roger. "Movie Answer Man." 27 November, 2005.
        • Keiser, Joe. "Why Ebert was Right." Next Generation. December 4, 2005.
      • Bond-Short:
        • Bond, Stephen. "Player Freedom." May 2007.
        • Short, Emily. "On Stephen Bond on Player Freedom." May 25, 2007.
• Week 13 (April 1): Digital Poetics
  • Research paper due
  • New media project presentations [Presenter(s):  T B A]
  • Readings
    • Primary, select from among
      • Falco, Ed. "Night, Water, Night."
      • Kendall, Robert. "Clues."
      • McCloud, Scott. "Porphyria's Lover."
      • Howard, Peter. "A Poppy."  [Text Version | Multimedia Version]
      • Swiss, Thomas and Motomichi Nakamura. "Hey Now."
      • ECHOCHE
      • Kurzweil, Ray. "Cybernetic Poet."
      • Nelson, Jason. "Superstitious Appliances."
      • Chang, Young Hae. "The Struggle Continues."
      • Howard, Peter, et al. "Midwinter Fair."
      • Slattery, Diana Reed, Daniel J. O'Neil and Bill Brubaker "Glide: An Interactive Visual Exploration of Language."
    • Secondary Readings, as explicit reference points for presentations, select from among earlier weeks' readings and the below:
      • Winder, Bill. "Robotic Poetics." In The Blackwell Companion to Digital Humanities.
      • Yoo, Hyun-Joo. "Interview With YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES." Dichtung-Digital 35 (December 2005).
      • Glazier, Loss Pequeno. "E-Poetries a Lab Book of Digital Practice, 1970-2001." Digital Poetics: The Making of E-Poetries. Ed. Loss Pequeno Glazier. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2002. 126-152.
      • Shirkey, Cynthia D. "E-Poetry: Digital Frontiers For An Evolving Art Form." College and Research Libraries News, 64.4 (April 2003).
      • Fitch, Christine. "The Pervasiveness of War Presented Without Words."
      • —. "A Hypertext's Elements Act As..."
      • Gyori, Ladislao Pablo. "Virtual Poetry." Visible Language 30.2 (1996): 158-63.
      • Bootz, Philippe. "Poetic Machinations." Visible Language Special Issue: New Media Poetry: Poetic Innovation and New Technologies 30.2 (1996): 118-37.