Complete all assigned reading before coming to class. Please keep in mind that all reading assignments are subject to change. This website is the canonical version of the schedule. That said, here’s the syllabus as it appeared on the first day of class.

All page numbers refer to the editions/ISBNs that I have ordered. Some readings are in the Course Reserves system, indicated by CR.

–Week 1–

Digital Humanities = Screwing Around

Sep. 5 W

• Introductions, Syllabus
• What’s Stuck

–Week 2–

Sep. 10 M

• Stephen Ramsay. “The Hermeneutics of Screwing Around; or What You Do with a Million Books.” Pre-print version (courtesy of the author). 17 April 2010. (CR)

Sep. 12 W

• Alexis C. Madrigal. “How Netflix Reverse Engineered Hollywood.” The Atlantic. 2 Jan. 2014.
• Kayleigh Donaldson. “Did this Book Buy Its Way Onto The New York Times Bestseller List?” Pajiba. 27 Aug. 2017.
• That’s Not My Name (Yet).

–Week 3–

Mapping Digital Humanities

Sep. 17 M

• Franco Moretti. “Models for an Abstract Literary History 2.” New Left Review. 2004. (CR)
• Stephen Ramsay. “Who’s In and Who’s Out.” From Defining Digital Humanities. 2013. (CR)
• Stephen Ramsay. “On Building.” From Defining Digital Humanities. 2013. (CR)

Sep. 19 W

• Jhumpa Lahiri. “Sexy.” In Interpreter of Maladies. New York: Houghton, 1999. (CR)

–Week 4–

Sep. 24 M

• Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway, 3-64

Sep. 26 W

• Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway, 64-128

–Week 5–

Oct. 1 M

• Virginia Woolf. Mrs. Dalloway, 128-end

Oct. 3 W

• Dalloway presentations

–Week 6–

Reading the Digital

 Oct. 8 M

• Dalloway presentations
• Kathleen Fitzpatrick. “The Humanities, Done Digitally.” From Debates in the Digital Humanities. 2012.

Oct. 10 W

•  Steven Johnson. “Games.” From Everything Bad is Good for You. 2005. (CR)
• Janet H. Murray. “Games as Symbolic Dramas.” From Hamlet on the Holodeck. 1997. (CR)

–Week 7–

Oct. 15 M

• Jesper Juul. “What is Casual.” From Casual Revolution. 2010. (CR)
• In-class poll

Oct. 17 W

• Anita Sarkeesian. “Damsel in Distress Part 1.” Feminist Frequency. 2013.

–Week 8–

Oct. 22 M

• Siva Vaidhyanathan. “The Pleasure Machine.” From Antisocial Media. 2018. (CR)
• Nicholas Thompson and Fred Vogelstein. “Inside the Two Years that Shook Facebook—and the World.” Only sections 1, 2, 5, 7, and 9. Wired. February 2018. (CR)
• In-class poll: Facebook and Feelings

Oct. 24 W

• Whitney Phillips. “We’re the Reason We Can’t Have Nice Things on the Internet.” Quartz. 29 December 2015.
• Review session poll

–Week 9–

Oct. 29 M

• BYU Copyright Office. “Copyright Tutorial,” “What is Copyright?”, “Fair Use Overview,” “Fair Use Statute,” “Meaning of the Four Fair Use Factors”
• Lawrence Lessig. “Cultures of Our Past.” From Remix. 2008. (CR)
• Creativity and Copyright poll

Oct. 31 W

• Kirby Ferguson et al. “Everything is a Remix.”
• Adrienne Lafrance. “When a ‘Remix’ is Plain Ole Plagiarism.” The Atlantic. 3 May 2017.
• Annie Zaleski. “The Strange Magic of YouTube’s Remix Culture.” NPR. 17 July 2018.

–Week 10–

Nov. 5 M

• Midterm Exam

This is Your Eyes on the Internet

Nov. 7 W

• Mark Sample. “Notes towards a Deformed Humanities.” Sample Reality. 2 May 2012.
• N+7 Machine

–Week 11–

Nov. 12 M

• Kevin L. Ferguson. “Digital Surrealism.” Digital Humanities Quarterly.
• Kevin L. Ferguson. “To Cite or to Steal? When a Scholarly Project Turns Up in a Gallery.” Hyperallergic. 30 June 2016.

Nov. 14 W

• Jason Eppink. “A Brief History of the Gif: So Far.”
• Lauren Michele Jackson. “We Need to Talk about Digital Blackface in Reaction GIFs.” Teen Vogue. 2 Aug. 2017.

–Week 12–

Nov. 19 M

• Lindsay King and Peter Leonard. Robots Reading Vogue.
  • Averaging Colors in Vogue
  • Vogue Covers in Colormetric Space
  • Slice Histograms
  • About page
  • Either n-gram search or Statistics
• Lev Manovich et al. Selfie-City.

Nov. 21 W

• No class. Be thankful.

–Week 13–

Reading Digitally, or, How to (Not) Read Erdrich

Nov. 26 M

• Franco Moretti. “Models for an Abstract Literary History—1.” New Left Review. 2003.

Nov. 28 W

• Louise Erdrich. “The Red Convertible,” “Scales,” “Saint Marie,” and “The Fat Man’s Race” from The Red Convertible.

–Week 14–

Dec. 3 M

• Erdrich. “Pounding the Dog,” “Best Western,” “Father’s Milk” from Red Convertible.
• Choose Your Own Adventure poll

Dec. 5 W

• Erdrich. Red Convertible. “Fuck with Kayla and You Die” and “Hasta Namaste, Baby” from The Red Convertible.

–Week 15–

Dec. 10 M

• Erdrich project
• BYU Student Ratings
• Additional survey

Dec. 12 W

• Erdrich project

–Week 16–

Dec. 17 M

• Final Exam, 2:30-5:30 pm
• Finals playlist