Gerald L. Gold, 321
E-mail: [email protected] September
2003
REQUIREMENTS DUE
DATES
|
your class presentations |
20 % |
Oral presentations of your essay together with
PowerPoint support begin |
|
Essay: ethnographic/anthropological analysis of a web culture Must be based on seminar presented in class |
30% |
Due Must be submitted in class, in person |
|
Take-home
tests |
30 %
[15% each term] covers
term readings + class presentations by the instructor and by students |
Available
2 weeks in advance Due & Must be submitted in class, in
person |
|
Participation |
20 %
[see details below] |
In class assignments |
Scheduling of weekly topics:
Please complete readings BEFORE the class in which they are scheduled. During class
discussion, you should already be familiar with required readings and contribute to an informed and lively
discussion. You will be asked to discuss these readings during this class. I will give each student a name tag at the beginning of term to
assist in recognizing students by name.
Each class, several
students will be selected to lead this discussion, sometimes responding to
alternative sides of a question.
On two occasions, distributed throughout each term,
participation will also be graded by responses to brief in class written
questions [1 to 2 pages] -based on readings for that week. There will be
advance notice of these in-class tests.
Participation: read
carefully!
Participation
grades are "worth" as much as your presentation. You can ensure a respectable participation
grade in the following ways:
1) First, be certain that you have carefully read and
thought about NEXT week's reading.
To assist you with this, I will give you file keywords and ideas for the
upcoming classes. You must come to class
to get this information. I will not
correspond by e-mail.
2) Your understanding of this reading will be most thorough
IF you also look at related readings either through periodical and
library research or by looking at sources used by the author herself/himself.
3) Every Week, I will select a student to begin this
discussion, covering the entire class list.
However, after that first commentary, anyone else in the class can add
their material. I will not add my
questions (I will have completed my lecture) until after your comments, waiting
at least 10 minutes.
4) I will distribute name labels to assist you and
myself in identifying students by name.
5) The discussion by Winter term,
will focus on student presentations. Try
to absorb the material in these presentations, with a critical eye. Like the readings and lectures in the fall,
focus on the highlights of each presentation, asking for further details and
introducing alternative perspectives.
Take-home tests:
The take-home tests are based on required readings, lectures, supplementary readings, and all presentations by the instructor and by students. You MUST INCORPORATE references
to supplementary readings in take-home tests. There will be a
choice of three questions on each test [from 4 questions] and each reply
(each question) should be about 300 words (plus references.)
Some supplementary materials are
available only on the web, and are listed in this outline.
Presentations:
1. Should be no longer
than 25 -- 30 minutes and no shorter than 20-25 minutes. Practice these first before your
presentation.
2. Students must use PowerPoint which use the
computer and projection screen available in every class. [Macintosh equipment is available after prior
request.]
3. Presentations must be focused and incorporate the major ideas of your essay,
research, and reading. Using handouts makes presentations more
effective.
Essay requirements:
Your
essays should make use of ALL course materials as well as those materials
which you select for your essay research.
Cite all meaningful references,
which you use in constructing your essay.
These must include periodical
literature both printed and electronic. Use an acceptable citation format. (Social science or humanities citation style
are preferred.)
I expect ALL participants to discuss their essay plans with me, in
adequate detail, BEFORE your
presentation date. Usually, this is best
accomplished at prearranged hours. (brief discussions during
class are often insufficient. I will not
discuss essays by e-mail or by telephone.)
To
use periodical publications, you should make use of on-line periodical searches
and search tools available remotely through the library. Please note that many useful references are
included in bibliographies of required readings.
Essays should be no more than 12 to 14 pages,
double-spaced or 2500 words, followed by a full list of references using
an acceptable citation style [e.g., anthropological or APA]. URL [Internet]
sources must also be cited in an acceptable format.
These citations and
references are not included as part of the length of your essay.
TEXTS
: printed and electronic
PLEASE complete all required readings before presenting your papers in
class.
¨C. H. Gray Cyborg
Citizen: politics and the postmodern age.
URL for this book adds
additional material:
http://www.ugf.edu/CompSci/Cgray/CYCIT.HTM
¨Marc Smith and Peter
Kollock eds. Communities in Cyberspace.
¨ Sherry Turkle, Life
on the screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet.
¨Howard Rhinegold, The Virtual Community: Homesteading
on the Electronic Frontier
http://www.well.com/user/hlr/vcbook/index.html (selected pages)
¨(required
reading)
Course outline
1. Sept. 5 Orientation and
course explanation
Toward an anthropology
of cyberspace
Can anthropologists look at cyberspace as
a place? Is a Virtual Community also a virtual place?
And how have the places of fieldwork changed in recent years? Does cyberspace incorporate the boundaries of
cultures which are similar to conventional cultures, or those that can be
thought of as imagined communities (Benedict
Anderson) as opposed to the conventional objects of anthropologists? If so, how
is fieldwork carried out in cyberspace, and which techniques are most useful to
cyber- anthropologists? The reading for next week is by Howard Rhinegold, one
of the first persons to discuss and interpret virtual communities.
2. Sept. 12 A Different Kind of “Place”: Daily life in cyberspace
Rhinegold
1-110
Daily life in cyberspace ... accidental history of
the net (follow section titles rather than page numbers, this text is
available online.)
Keesing 67-75 Culture & People: Some Basic Comments
Hine, Christine
Virtual ethnography
http://www.sosig.ac.uk/iriss/papers/paper16.html
₪ High Stakes
in Cyberspace
3. Sept. 19 The virtual
community
How are virtual communities separate
social physical spaces like the " communities"
described by anthropologists and others?
How do anthropologists analyze virtual spaces as “places” and how can
these virtual places become appropriate choices for fieldwork?
₪
Media conversion
Smith
and Kollock 3-29 Communities in Cyberspace
Hine, Christine
Virtual ethnography
http://www.sosig.ac.uk/iriss/papers/paper16.html
Hanman, Robin
The application of ethnographic
methodology in the study of cyberspace
http://www.sosig.ac.uk/iriss/papers/paper16.htma
4. Sept. 26 BRICOLAGE
Turkle 1-76 The Seductions
of the Interface: A Tale of Two Aesthetics, The Triumph of Tinkering
₪
First-person Shooter
5.
Oct. 3 Culture at the interface
Turkle 77-124 Of Dreams and Beasts
(Making a pass at a robot, Taking things at interface value.
₪ Wired
6. Oct. 10
Emergence on the New Frontier
Turkle 125-176 The quality
of emergence, Artificial life as the new frontier.
Luciano Paccagnella (1997)
"Getting the Seat of Your Parents Dirty: Strategies for Ethnographic
Research in Virtual Communities."
Journal of Computer Mediated Communication 3: 1.
Social
boundaries and cyberspace bodies and communities
Some define virtual communities as places
in cyberspace without boundaries. However,
the definition of virtual spaces involves rethinking of the relationship
between man machine and space and body. This redefinition is central to these
readings which introduce examples of fieldwork in cyberspace. At issue, is not only how cyberspace creates communities, but also how
people experience these communities and whether social change occurs in
cyberspace, in the absence of a physical community.
7. October 17 Invisible Crowds
The
primary focus of these articles is how relationships are formed and structured
in cyberspace. What is the link between
people who are dispersed and invisible to each other? How does the
anthropologist (yourself) map invisible
communities in cyberspace? Is there an invisible
crowd in that community or in all communities?
Smith and Kollock: 167-194 (Cooley and Wellman) “Virtual Communities as communities:
"Net surfers don’t ride alone."
Smith and Kollock
195-219 (Smith) “Invisible crowds in cyberspace: mapping the social structure
of Usenet
8. October 24
In cyberspace, what is the sociology of the economies
of online co-operation? Returning to
basic concepts of social exchange, how is the gift manifested in cyberspace?
Smith and Kollock 220-242 (Kollock) “The
economies of online cooperation: gifts and public goods in cyberspace.”
In class assignment: comment
in less than one page on a virtual group as a distinctive social and cultural
unit (use Keesing)?
9.
October 31 Virtual
identities, cyborgs, and SEXUALITY
Turkle 177-.270 (On the Internet: Aspects of
self, Tiny sex and gender trouble, virtual polity and
its discontents, Identity crisis)
10.
November 7 GENDER AND IDENTITY
Smith and Kollock 76-106 (O'Brien) “ ... Gender Reproduction...”
Smith and Kollock 29-59 (Donath) "Identity and deception in the virtual
community”
11.
November 14 SOCIAL ORDER AND CONTROL
These readings focus on
questions of hierarchy and power and the resolution of conflict within virtual
communities.
Smith and Kollock 107-133 (Reid )... "Hierarchy and power"
12. November 21
Smith and Kollock 134-166 (Du Val Smith)
"Problems of Conflict Management"
13.
November 28
My Discovery of
Cyberspace
Gerald Gold Whatever It Takes Chapter 1-2
Take home test due in-class: last class of fall term, Nov.
28
This
is an excellent moment to return to some of the issues discussed at the
beginning of fall term. How would you
use anthropological techniques or other social science methodology to study a
virtual community? You can benefit from
the readings for this term by using the example of my own study of virtual
community and other readings.
The
course essay requires you to identify and describe a virtual community in
conceptual terms. There are two
components to this essay: First, a thorough review of discussions of similar
virtual communities. Second, provide a
brief report on your observations.
Third, provide conclusions which explore, in some detail, the
relationship between your observations and the questions raised in your
introduction not the studies of virtual communities. All three of these components must be in your
paper!
Think of yourself as an observer who could possibly do
future fieldwork using the techniques discussed in this course.
At the beginning of winter term or even at
the end of fall term, please join and begin observing a virtual community or
newsgroup. You may choose to eventually make your presence known if you wish to
receive private communications. But this
essay only requires observation of group messages and I would rather you avoid the ethical questions which arise
from participating in group activities It helps if you have some linkage, which
you can make with a virtual community.
This could be a particular sports interest, or hobby Sanchez tropical
fish, or raising snakes which we used in previous
years. Others may wish to focus on a
popular theme. Examples used by students
include Harry Potter and Napster (Web distribution music.)
Although you may
be a “lurker,” you are also an observer.
It is not necessary, in the context of this assignment, to make contact
with people or establish your virtual presence.
However, some of you may have already established that kind of presence.
I
will be asking you almost on a weekly basis to provide progress reports on your
observations, often using the computer projector which will be available in
every class. You may wish to work with the instructor in your selection and
approach to a virtual community.
This project uses your own set of observations and should
be independent and original work, unconnected to any other classes. That is,
Final essays must be submitted in both
manuscript and disk format, in person, on or before March 12, 2004. You must place your name, paper title and
page number on every page of your essay (using a header and or footer.)
ethnography in a virtual community
1. January 9
. Virtual
communities and collective action
(Gold) Chapter three
This chapter provides an ethnography
of a virtual community and is a model for your essays.
These readings focus on the question
of whether virtual communities are capable of becoming foci of collective
action. This issue becomes important if
a virtual community is to be more than an electronic bulletin board. Are
virtual communities capable of influencing actions of their members? Can virtual communities recruit their
participants to common action oriented projects?
Smith and Kollock 243-263 (Gurak) “The Promise and the peril of social action in
cyberspace...”
2. January 16
Social action in cyberspace -- continued
Smith and Kollock 290-310 (Mele) "The
Internet as a Tool Collective Action"
IN CLASS ASSIGNMENT:
comment in less than one-page, on the role of the Internet as an agency or
collective action.
Smith and Kollock 60-76 (Burkhalter) "
Cyborg Citizen: Postmodern Politics Pp. 1-68 cyborg society
note: please prepare for the discussion
question next week.
5. February 6
₪ Yale
Island transsexuals
DISCUSSION QUESTION: relate this film to materials in the book cyborg Citizen.
6. February 13
Cyborg Citizen Pp 69-130 promulgating cyborgs
FEBRUARY 20 [READING WEEK]
warning: your research should be already presented or scheduled. Reports cannot be squashed into the last few
days of classes
7. February 27
RESEARCH REPORTS BEGIN
Cyborg Citizen: cyborg
society Pp. 131-176
8. March 5
Cyborg Citizen: cyborgology Pp. 177-187
9. March 12
ESSAYS DUE
Cyborg Citizen: Post-human
Possibilities Pp. 187-201
10. March 19
Research reports
11. March 26
Research reports
12. April 2
Partial list of on-line references
Sexuality and Cyberspace (Women and
Performance)
http://www.echonyc.com/~women/Issue17/index.html
The Virtual Community (Howard Rhinegold)
http://www.well.com/user/hlr/vcbook/index.html
A Rape in Cyberspace: How an Evil Clown, a
Haitian Trickster Spirit, Two Wizards, and a Cast of Dozens Turned a Database Into a Society (Dibbell)
http://www.levity.com/julian/bungle.html
City of
http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-books/City_of_Bits/
Studying on-line social networks (L. Garton et.al.)
http://jcmc.mscc.huji.ac.il/vol3/issue1/garton.html
Insuperable online, Nine
principles for making virtual communities work (Mike Goodwin)
http://www.wired.com/wired/2.06/departments/idees.fortes/vc.principles.html
The psychology of cyberspace (John Suler)
http://www1.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/psycyber.html
Virtual communities as ethical spaces -
Why cyberspace does another signal the end of civilization as we know it (Beth Kolko)
http://www.uwyo.edu/A&S/phil/cae/cybersoc/kolko.htm
Building a world with words: The
narrative reality of virtual communities (Beth Kolko
http://www.iup.edu/~c271pdefault/cyberspaces/Kolko.html
Virtual communities in
http://sunsite.sut.ac.jp/pub/academic/communications/papers/Virtual-Communities-in-Japan
My Dinner With
Catherine MacKinnon and Other Hazards of Theorizing Virtual Rape (Julian Dibbell)
http://www.levity.com/julian/mydinner.html
Hine, Christine
Virtual ethnography
http://www.sosig.ac.uk/iriss/papers/paper16.html
Hanman, Robin
The application of
ethnographic methodology in the study of cyberspace
http://www.sosig.ac.uk/iriss/papers/paper16.htma
personal web page of
Gerald Gold
http://www/geocities.com/gerr_gold
Howard Rheingold text:
http://www.well.com/user/hlr/vcbook/index.html
Cyborg
Citizen references
C. H. Gray Cyborg Citizen: politics and the
postmodern age.
http://www.ugf.edu/CompSci/Cgray/CYCIT.HTM