ENG 3803 Spring 2022 Johnston

Text technologies! Though that term may not be one you’re familiar with (yet), you’re exposed to these every day, from the posts you scrolled through on your preferred social media platform this morning to the textbooks you hauled to class with you. All of these objects represent surprisingly complex ways in which human beings transmit ideas to one another. In this course, we will be examining a variety of text technologies from throughout history, studying not only the way they evolved, but the way the content they conveyed and the cultures in which they existed evolved alongside them. The course is divided into three broad categories – literature, music, and the camera arts – and within these we will explore such varied text technologies as clay tablets, codices, computers, photographs, films, VHS tapes, vinyl records, cassette tapes, and MP3s. The specific examples we will look at cover not only a broad range of historical periods and cultures, but styles and genres.