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> History of Information
Please buy from your preferred online book vendor: August 28 Introduction: On Information? Slides (Nunberg) | Slides (Duguid) | Handout | Podcast August 30 On Determinism Slides | Podcast Kurzweil, Ray. 2001. The Law of Accelerating Returns. Kurzweilai.net. Link Joy, Bill. 2000. Why the Future Doesn't Need Us. Wired 8.04 (April). Link Heilbroner, Robert L. 1994. Do Machines Make History? pp. 53-65 in Merrit Roe Smith & Leo Marx eds., Does Technology Drive History? Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. [R] Williams, Raymond. 1975. Technology and the Society, pp. 9-14 in Raymond Williams, Television and Cultural Form. New York: Schocken Books. [R] September 4 Labor Day NO CLASS September 6 Writing Systems Slides | Podcast Robinson, Andrew. 2002. The Story of Writing, ch. 3, 4, 9. London, Thames & Hudson. BUY here Britannica Online article on Writing (UCB login required) Link September 11 Written Mentalities Slides | Podcast Ong, Walter J. 1982. "Writing Restructures Consciousness," ch. 2 of Orality and Literacy. London: Methuen. [R] Goody, Jack and Ian Watt. "The
Consquences of Literacy," Comparative September 13 Manuscript Cultures Slides | Podcast Clanchy, M.T. 1998. Hearing and Seeing, Trusting Writing, pp. 135-158 in Eugene R. Kintgen, et al., Perspectives on Literacy. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. [R] September 18 Storing and retrieving Slides | Podcast Casson, Lionel. 2000. The Library of Alexandria, & The Growth of Libraries, pp 31-57 in Lionel Casson, Libraries in the Ancient World. New Haven: Yale University Press. [R] Thompson, James Westfall. 1942. The Age of Mabillon and Montfaucon, American Historical Review, 47(2): 225-244. [CDL: JSTOR] September 20 Print, printing, and print culture Slides | Podcast Eisenstein, Elizabeth. 1983. The Emergence of Print Culture in the West, pp: 1-42 in Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. [R] September 25 Book writing and wall writing Slides | Podcast Henkin, David. 1998. "Word on the Street," Ch. 4, pp 69-100 of City Reading, New York City, NY: Columbia University Press. [R] Slides September 27 18th century public sphere: Early newspaper, coffee houses, political discourse Slides | Podcast First Quiz - Study Guide Poster, Mark. 1995. The Net as Public Sphere. Wired 3.11 optional Habermas, Jurgen, Sara Lennox, Frank Lennox. 1974. "The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article (1964). New German Critique 3: 49-55 [CDL: JSTOR] First Quiz October 2 Science; statistics; certainty Slides | Podcast Atkinson, Dwight. 1999. The Royal Society and Its Philosophical Transactions: A Brief Institutional History, pp. 15-55 in Dwight Atkinson, Scientific Discourse in Sociohistorical Context: The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1675 - 1975. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. [R] Rusnock, Andrea. 2002. A New Science: Political Arithmetic, pp 15-39 in Andrea Rusnock, Vital Accounts: Quantifying Health and Population in Eighteenth-Century England and France New York: Cambridge University Press. [R] October 4 Forms of authority: reference books, museums, libraries Slides | Podcast McArthur, Tom. 1986. Worlds of Reference. Ch 12-16 (pp 91-141). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [R] October 9 Information work Slides | Podcast Edwards, James Don. 1960. Early Bookkeeping and its Development into Accounting. Business History Review 34(4): 446-458. [CDL: JSTOR]. Thompson, E.P. 1967. Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism Past & Present 38 (Dec): 56-97. [CDL: Project Muse] October 11 Dawn of the information economy Slides | Podcast Yates, JoAnne. 1989. Communication Technology and the Growth of Internal Communication pp 21-64 in JoAnne Yates, Control through Communication: The Rise of System in American Management. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. [R] Fields, Gary. 2004. Continental Divide: The Business Enterprise of G.F. Swift & Company, pp 91-135 in Gary Fields, Territories of Profit: Communications, Capitalist Development, and the Innovative Enterprises of G.E. Swift and Dell Computer. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press [R] October 16 19th century public sphere: mass communication Slides | Podcast Schudson, Michael, 1978. Discovering the News, pp. 12-87. New York: Basic Books.[R] October 18 19th century public sphere: mass communication [continued] Slides | Podcast Headrick, Daniel R., 2000. Communicating Information, Ch 6 (pp. 181-193 only) of When Information Came of Age, Oxford: Oxford University Press. [R] October 23 Time and space: point to point Slides | Podcast | Second Quiz - Study Guide Fischer, Claude S. The Telephone in America, pp. 33-59 in Claude S Fischer, America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone (Berkeley: U.C. Press, 1992). [CDL] optional James, Henry. 1898. In the Cage Link Second Quiz October 25 Propaganda Slides | Podcast Marlin, Randall, 2002. "History of Propaganda," Ch. 2 (pp 43-94) of Propaganda and the Ethics of Persuasion, Toronto: Broadview Press. [R] Bernays, Edward, 1928 (2005). Propaganda. Ch 1-3 (pp. 35-50). Brooklyn, NY: Ig Publishing. [R] October 30 Office automation; ERP Slides | Podcast [this class will also discuss the readings of October 11 -- JoAnne Yates & Gary Fields-- and related issues of technology and business] Raff, Daniel. 2000. Superstores and the Evolution of Firm Capabilities in American Bookselling. Strategic Management Journal, 21: 1043-1059. [CDL: JSTOR] The Internet: How it will change you do business. Business Week. Nov 14, 1994. The paths to the paperless office. Business Week. June 30, 1975. The office of the future. Business Week. June 30, 1975. Office automation: making it pay off. Business Week. Oct. 12, 1987. November 1 Post office No slides | Podcast Henkin, David. 2007. Becoming Postal, pp 15-41 in The Postal Age: The Emergence of Modern Communications in Nineteenth-Century America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. November 6 Broadcast slides | Podcast Starr, Paul, 2004. The Creation of the Media. Ch. 10-11, pp. 327-384. New York City, NY: Basic Books.[R] November 8 Broadcast (continued) Advertising: branded goods, branding information for slides see 11/15 | Podcast 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. [R] November 13 Intellectual property: owning information Slides | Podcast Third Quiz - Study Guide Hesse, Carla. 2002. The Rise of Intellectual Property, 700 B.C.- A.D. 2000: An Idea in the Balance, Daedalus (Spring): 26-45 [CDL: ASAP]. Posner, Richard. 2002. The Law & Economics of Intellectual Property, Daedalus (Spring): 5-12. [CDL: ASAP]. Barlow, John Perry. 1994. The Economy of Ideas: A Framework for Patents and Copyrights in the Digital Age. (Everything You Know about Intellectual Property Is Wrong). Wired 2.03, March.Link Third Quiz November 15 Advertising (continued) slides |Podcast 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. [R] November 20 Internet & Information Literacy slides | Podcast TBA November 22 Reading Class November 27 Open Source slides 1 slides 2 | Podcast Assignment In this class, we'll be discussing "Open Source". The class won't be about OS software so much as other "open" or "peer to peer" projects such as Wikipedia and Project Gutenberg, areas of what Benkler, in the reading, calls "cultural production". To prepare for class, everyone should choose a Wikipedia entry that is in some way related to issues that we have discussed this semester under the heading "history of information". See if you can assess whether the entry is any good and whether you might suggest changes to it. Be prepared, if called upon, to tell us what entry you chose, why you chose it, and what you found interesting about it. (Was it informative? Did you spot problems? Would you recommend it? Would you think of changing it?) You might also think of other peer-to-peer projects that we could discuss under the topic of "open source". Reading Benkler, Yochai. 2006. 'A Moment of Opportunity and Challenge', pp 1-34 in Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006). Link November 29 Search, storage and retrieval slides | Podcast Bush, Vannevar. 1945. As We May Think, The Atlantic Monthly; July 1945; Volume 176, No. 1; 101-108. Link Battelle, John. 2005. The Database of Intention, pp 1-18 in John Battelle, Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed our Culture [R] December 4 20th Century Public Sphere slides | Podcast TBA December 6 Utopia slides | podcast TBA December 16 EXAM Final Exam Study Guide |
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