Syllabus for Graduate Seminar
on The Writings of William Gibson
[version 2.01]
Methodology
We will read a book a week outside of class time, and come to class prepared to engage in a free-wheeling discussion of the text. Everyone must contribute to the conversation. We will limit the number of participants to ensure that this is possible. We will respect diverse points of view. We will appoint a “google-jockey” who will provide a synchronous — parallel — media-text for our discussion. We will record our click-stream via del.iciou.us, or bibsonomy. We will aggregate our commentaries via twitter. We will, individually, create podcast-able final deliverables of a maximum duration of 5-minutes that respond to the collection of readings for the quarter. These we will publish online at Mogopop.
The traditional pedagogy of a seminar is to guide the participants through the “great texts” of their target domain of knowledge and practice. Particpants seek to create informed views on these texts and enjoy the help of an experienced guide through the material. The guide has pre-determined a path, and participants can be assured of their safety during the journey.
My first impulse — as expressed in an earlier version of this document — along the tradtional path is to demonstrate both the depth and breadth of my knowledge and control over the material. This to further reassure the participants as we prepare for a journey into the unknown. Upon reflection, this impulse will set us off on a doomed trajectory. It will be better to provide less information, rather than more, in order for particpants to have more room to move through the material and to make their own discoveries.
Rather than provide an extensive list of links to related material, I will provide a set of search terms that should prove fruitful. Rather than maps, these will be compass headings. There are — after all — no maps for these territories.
Why read William Gibson?
This is a good question. And one for which the answer — I hope — will become self-evident by the end of the seminar. There are a set of socratic questionings that can help, to whit: Why read William Gibson? How will reading genre fiction (sci fi), or even sub-genre fiction (“cyber-punk”), help us achieve a deeper understanding of techno-culture? How is twenty-year old cyber-punk fiction relevant today? How can this material help us understand our artistic and designerly practices? How can mass-market paperbacks sharpen our critical sensibilities?
Required Reading
- Gibson, William. Burning Chrome. (collection 1986)
- Johnny Mnemonic (1981)
- New Rose Hotel (1981)
- Burning Chrome (1982)
- Gibson, William. Neuromancer. (1984)
- Gibson, William. Count Zero. (1986)
- Gibson, William. Mona Lisa Overdrive. (1988)
Gibson, William. The Difference Engine. (with Bruce Sterling) (1991)- Gibson, William. Virtual Light. (1993)
- Gibson, William. Idoru. (1996)
- Gibson, William. All Tomorrow's Parties. (1999)
- Gibson, William. Pattern Recognition. (2003)
- Gibson, William. Spook Country (2007)
The writings of William Gibson
- Abe Books
- Alibris Books
- Powell's Books
- Barnes & Noble Booksellers
- Amazon.com
Online bookstores
Recommended Search Terms
In no particular order
William Gibson, Mirrorshades, Bruce Sterling, Philip K. Dick, Donna Haraway, Ray Kurzweil, Norbert Weiner, Raymond Chandler, George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, Rudy Rucker, Lewis Shiner, Mark Neale, Paul Verhoeven, Roy Ascott, Carl Yoke, Andrew Holden, John Huston, Billy Wilder, Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, Ridley Scott, David Cronenberg, Michael Radford, Terry Gilliam, Luc Besson, Wim Wenders, Kathryn Bigelow, Andrew Niccol, Andrew Wachowski, Michael Winterbottom, Kar Wai Wong, Pierre Morel, Hal Hartley, Alfonso Cuaron, Richard Linklater, Lynn Hershman-Leeson, Chris Marker, Iain Softley, Neal Stephenson, Cory Doctorow, Umberto Eco, Jean Baudrillard, Roland Barthes, Simulation and Simulacra, Hyperreality, Mythology, Stelarc, J.G. Ballard, William S. Burroughs, Holy Fire, Leggy Starlitz, Prosthesis, Cyborg, Post-human, Orlan, Nip Tuck, Metalosis Maligna, Stephen Wolfram, Osman Khan, Data body, Panopticon, Greil Marcus, Malcom MacLaren, Johnny Lydon, Johnny Ramone, Joe Strummer, Henry Rollins, Black Flag, Urban Sprawl, Lagos, Hyper City, The Hypercomplex Society, Favela, Banlieu, Joseph Cornell, Dub, Sandbenders, Tokyo, Boston, Mimesis, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Hong Kong, Singapore, Infrastructure, Gundam, Otaku, J-pop, Cosplay, Cipher, Code, Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Life, Virus, Gene, Meme, Teme, Countermeasures, Cyberspace, Metaverse, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Alternate Reality, Reality TV, Fiber-optic cable, Dark Fiber, Second Life, World of Warcraft, Tamagotchi, Miku Hatsune, Mieke Gerritzen, Universal Product Code, Semacode, QR Code, Wickd.
Mediagraphy
- William Gibson’s home page
- Neale, Mark, director. No Maps For These Territories. Documentary. 2000. Last accessed 2007.11.20