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The sources for the history of our times are fragile. Joe Ricketts, the billionaire owner of DNAInfo and Gothamist, shut the local news publications down rather than tolerate a unionized workforce. For 11 minutes, Trump was kicked off Twitter. Ian Bogost sees in both episodes a symptom of a deeper problem: both are pulling on the same brittle levers that have made the contemporary social, economic, and political environment so lawless. As public historians, what are we to do about this? There are a lot of issues highlighted here, but let’s start at the most basic. It takes nothing to delete the record. The fragility of materials online is both a danger, and an opportunity, for us. Some scholars have “gone rogue” in trying to deal with this problem. That is to say, they neither sought nor obtained permission. They just scoped out a process, and did it. I initially called this class ‘guerrilla public digital history’ partly tongue in cheek. I imagined us doing some augmented reality type projects in public spaces. Reprogramming those public spaces. Using digital techs to surface hidden histories, and insert them into spaces where they didn’t ‘belong’. Counterprogramming. That was the ‘guerilla’ bit. I still want to do all that. But I think we’re going to have to do a bit more. Digital Public Historians have a role to play I suspect in countering the information power asymmetry. These ways are impromptu, without authorization. Rogue. Improvised. What is a ‘guerilla digital public history’? I don’t know. But we’re going to find out.

This course will consist of five modules with a combination of video, written materials, tutorials, and assigned readings. Modules each cover approximately three weeks of the semester, and end with either an online exam or a creative project. Each module will open on its scheduled date, and will include at least one video lecture recorded in advance. Remember that while this course is online, it is not self-paced: discussion topics open every week and are due at the end of the week, and the three scheduled exams and projects are due as listed in this syllabus and will not be accepted late. The syllabus will be reviewed in detail as part of the first lecture, but students are also encouraged to read through these materials carefully and ask for clarifications if necessary.

We will examine how theoretical discourse has evolved through shifting technological platforms, with particular attention to the challenges software, code, and networks present to our understanding of texts. We will engage with examples of complex procedural works ranging from video games to electronic literature and social media. Each of these new platforms challenges our understanding of knowledge and how knowledge is circulated, curated, and redefined in a web-centric culture. Throughout the course, students will engage with current book-length scholarship on a variety of digital media subjects using a range of methodologies. Students will develop their skills at framing long-form scholarly objects in preparation for their dissertation projects, while engaging in several projects to prepare for qualifying exams and digital scholarship.

This seminar will provide students with the foundations for designing and executing oral history research projects. Students will read and discuss literature about oral history theory and methods and they will examine how historians use oral history interviews to construct interpretive historical narratives. The class requires prior knowledge of or the willingness to learn how to use digital recording devices, digital playback software, and digital methods of submitting course projects for archival preservation. Students will undertake independent fieldwork that will allow them to apply the methods and approaches studied in class. Field interviews will be either of someone from the community associated with La Salle University or of a U.S. war veteran.

This course is an introduction to digital technology and culture that integrates interdisciplinary knowledge from literary studies, rhetoric and composition, art and design, business, and sociology to prepare students for the technical and cultural challenges of the 21st century. While this class is committed to introducing students to the history and culture of digital technology, it will also provide students with hands-on experiences with digital tools and delve into questions about what makes something digital and how we conceptualize our lives beyond the digital.

DTC 375 is an introduction to the historical relationships between technology, communication, and forms of writing. The course gives students an appreciation of the technological history of media, including hands-on encounters with the components, programs, and signals that create various technological effects: from sound to graphics to characters to tactile effects. Divided into the three unit s exploring the history of media that most directly impacted the development of the computer (sound, vision, and text), DTC 375 explores how these media transformed our senses and our techniques of interacting with the world.

DTC 392 explores the cultural and historical impact of video games. We will learn about these issues by engaging in a semester-long project where we will prototype a video game. Video games are not just entertainment: they can be art, a form of political resistance, even a way to persuade other people. You’ll share your prototype with your fellow students, question each other’s assumptions, read research in game studies, and study gaming cultures.

Catalog Description 475 [DIVR] Digital Diversity 3 Course Prerequisite: Junior standing. Cultural impact of digital media in cultural contexts; issues of race, class, gender, sexuality online. (Crosslisted course offered as AMER ST 475, DTC 475, ENGLISH 475). Course Description DTC 475 is a continuation of the issues explored in DTC 206, DIGITAL INCLUSION. This course takes as its starting hypothesis the idea that various intersections of oppression exist in the manufacture, programming, design, and disposal of digital technologies. While this course will also explore how, for instance, technology has enabled new methods for visualizing the Other and new forms of accessibility for the differently-abled, it will also argue that these successes are only half of the story. The course proceeds via a series of case studies, emphasizing themes of intersectionality, mindfulness, and access that inform the issues and oppressions we explore.