Syllabus

1. ENGL 543/643
Multimedia Theory (and Practice):
New Mexico Eye and Ear Control
M/W 10:30-11:45 EN 127

2. Description
This class will take separately the terms “theory” and “practice,” and
we will spend the first two-thirds of the semester steeped in multiple
theories of what media are, under what conditions they can be “new,” or
“multiple” and how our concepts of self, society, and politics are them-
selves mediated through our various, multiple media.
In the last third of the semester, we will turn our eyes, ears, and other
organs of perception toward contemporary practices of media, em-
phasizing the transformations of public (or social) media practices after
the advent of internet and post-internet media. Our approach in these
weeks will be informed by our theoretical readings, and we will carry
through the whole semester discussion of the ideas found in those texts,
while also finding opportunity to get practical experience (in class) with
different media technologies.
Dr. Anthony Stagliano
staglian@nmsu.edu • 575-646-2468
OFFICE HOURS: 12-2 M/W EN 105
Course
ENGL 543/643
Multimedia Theory (and Practice):
New Mexico Eye and Ear Control
M/W 10:30-11:45 EN 127
The title to Albert Ayler’s 1964 album, “New York Eye and Ear Control,”
suggests the perfect description of what media are and how they work.
In the spirit of that phrase, “eye and ear control,” we will explore the many
ways that media systems (including language itself) operate to mediate,
control, extend, and complicate our means of perceiving, relating to, and
communicating with each other and the world. Meanwhile, though, in
examining the possibility that media actively control “our” eyes and ears,
we come up against the limits of anthropocentric approaches, and think
about centering the media themselves in our analyses.
2

3. As a seminar, we will learn the most
through discussion, debate, and some-
times through struggling together with
counter-intuitive and challenging ideas.
Thus, we all need to be in class and have
read the materials and be ready to
discuss them.
Assignments
Participation (5%)
Each week you will post a 250-300 word
response to/summary of that week’s
readings, concluding with a question or
two it raises in your mind for class discus-
sion. These will be posted 24 hours be-
fore our first class meeting for the week. I
will draw these together, and use them to
start our class discussions.
These posts serve several purposes.
First, in having to articulate your under-
standing of the readings, and the ques-
tions they raise for you, you deepen and
sharpen that understanding. Second,
in having these posted before class,
we have already before us a map of the
class’s possible discussion terrain (while
always knowing that travels into unchart-
ed or barely charted territory are often
most valuable). Third is an element of
social knowledge. If there are texts which
you have struggled with, or doubt your
understanding of, a quick survey of what
your classmates have made of these
might help dissolve difficult problems.
At least one of your weekly responses
will be created in a medium other than
academic prose. I want you to grap-
ple with the questions raised by these
texts as they push at the boundaries of
common understandings of conceptual
thinking. This requirement is meant to get
you thinking about ways of responding to
textual media with/in other media. This
exercise is one in open invention; I am ag-
nostic about which medium you choose.
Follow your own tendencies, affinities,
media habits.
Weekly Posts (25%)
Presentation of Seminar Research (5%)
In the last week of class, you will present
your work in progress on your seminar
paper. This will be 5-7 minutes, rela-
tively informal, and serves mainly as an
opportunity for you (collectively) to hear
what each other is working on, and to get
feedback from each other on possible
directions for the future of that work.
3

4. Assignments
The seminar paper will be between 5000
and 9000 words, and reflect
graduate-level argument, writing skill,
and engagement with other scholarship.
The paper will engage the course theme
in some way. It does not, however, need
to cite the readings we discussed this
semester. You are free to mobilize other
perspectives, conversations, controver-
sies, and so on. I take a pragmatic view
of the function of the seminar paper. It
should be a space for you to do the work
you need to do in graduate school, more
than a chance for you to demonstrate for
me that you “got” the materials we
encountered this semester. More import-
ant for you is to use the seminar paper as
an opportunity to draft an initial version of
an article or thesis/dissertation (or book)
chapter, and get my feedback on that.
You are welcome and encouraged to do
some or all of your seminar research in a
medium that is not (only) prose, if you are
inclined to do so. You will, however, still
need to produce work that reflects rigor-
ous engagement with complex questions,
and itself advances some novel interven-
tion. Many of the media objects we will
analyze in the class will be “art” projects
of one sort or another that indeed do
conceptual work in forms other than
academic prose. If these inspire you to
follow such a path, let me know, and I will
discuss with you the form you work will
take (including the prospectus, final
presentation, and submitted project).
Seminar Paper (50%)
In the 10th week of class, you will submit
a brief (3-4 pages, including short bib-
liography) prospectus for the paper. In
this, you will articulate the importance of
your intervention, preview the movement
of the argument you expect to make, and
relate the theories/texts/objects/technol-
ogies you will engage in that argument.
Paper Proposal (15%)
4

5. Policies
Your written assignments will follow
normal academic standards of reference
and citation.
With respect to non-textual production,
it’s increasingly hard in the multimediat-
ed production and circulation of ideas to
understand fully where the line is
between acceptable and unacceptable
recirculations of texts, thoughts, ideas
and so on. When in doubt, overcite, or
contact me (or both).
Note on Plagiarism
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of
1973 and the Americans with Disabilities
Act Amendments Act (ADAAA) covers
issues relating to disability and accom-
modations. If a student has questions or
needs an accommodation in the class-
room (all medical information is treated
confidentially), contact:
Trudy Luken, Director Student Acces-
sibility Services (SAS) - Corbett Center,
Rm. 244
Phone: (575) 646-6840
E-mail: sas@nmsu.edu
Website: http://sas.nmsu.edu/
NMSU policy prohibits discrimination on
the basis of age, ancestry, color, disabil-
ity, gender identity, genetic information,
national origin, race, religion, retaliation,
serious medical condition, sex, sexual ori-
entation, spousal affiliation and protected
veterans status.
Furthermore, Title IX prohibits sex dis-
crimination to include sexual misconduct:
sexual violence (sexual assault, rape),
sexual harassment and retaliation.
For more information on discrimination
issues, Title IX, Campus SaVE Act, NMSU
Policy Chapter 3.25, NMSU’s complaint
process, or to file a complaint contact:
Gerard Nevarez, Title IX Coordinator
Agustin Diaz, Title IX Deputy Coordinator
Office of Institutional Equity (OIE) -
O’Loughlin House, 1130 University
Avenue
Phone: (575) 646-3635 E-mail: equity@
nmsu.edu
Website: http://www.nmsu.edu/~eeo/
Other NMSU Resources:
NMSU Police Department: (575) 646-3311
www.nmsupolice.com
NMSU Police Victim Services: (575) 646-3424
NMSU Counseling Center: (575) 646-2731
NMSU Dean of Students: (575) 646-1722
For Any On-campus Emergencies: 911
Class Syllabus Notice
A (94-100%)
A- (90-93%)
B+ (88-90%)
B (84-87%)
B- (80-83%)
C+ (78-80%)
C (74-77%)
C- (70-73%)
D+ (68-70%)
D (64-67%)
F (0- 63%)
Grade Scale
I typically do not accept late work or grant
incompletes, except in circumstances
where it is clearly necessary. Should such
a situation arise, get in touch with me as
soon as you can and we will sort out what
arrangements are fair.
Late Work and Incompletes
5

6. Schedule
Week 1 (W 8/19): Course Intro/Syllabus
Week 2 (M 8/24 - W 8/26): What are (New) Media? What are Multimedia?
Readings: McLuhan, Selections from Understanding Media and the Gutenberg Galaxy
Manovich, Language of New Media, ch. 1, “What Is New Media?”; Mitchell, “What Is an
Image?”; Grusin and Bolter, Remediation
Screening: Wexler, Medium Cool
Sounding: Albert Ayler, “New York Eye and Ear Control”
Week 3 (M 8/31 - W 9/2): Language and/as Medium
Readings: Austin, How to Do Things with Words (lectures 1-5);
Derrida, “Signature, Event, Context.”; Flusser, “Line and Surface”
Screening/Sounding: Hill, Soundings
Week 4 (W 9/9): On the Materiality of Media(tion)
Readings: Kittler, Gramophone, Film, Typewriter (Translators’ Introduction; Introduction;
“Typewriter”); Galloway, “The Computer as Mode of Mediation” (introductory chapter to
The Interface Effect); Geoghegan, “After Kittler”; Parikka, “New Materialism as Media
Theory”
Screening: Minh-Ha, Reassemblage
Soundings:
Week 5 (M 9/14 - W 9/16): Technicity and Media Apparatus
Readings: Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Mechanical Reproducibility”
Heidegger, “Question Concerning Technology,” and “Age of the World Picture”
Agamben, “What Is an Apparatus?”
Screening: Farocki, Images of the World and the Inscription of War
Soundings:
Week 6 (M 9/21 - W 9/23): The Dangerous Spectacle of Media
Readings: Debord, The Society of Spectacle; Wark, “Widening Gyres,” (Ch. 1 of The
Spectacle of Disintegration); Baudrillard, “The Precession of Simulacra”
Screenings:
Soundings:
Week 7 (M 9/28 - W 9/30): Networks as Media (of Control)
Readings: Galloway, Protocol, introduction; Chun, Control and Freedom, introduction
and chapter 1, “Why Cyberspace?”; Deleuze “Post-Script on Control Society”
Screenings: Curtis, All Watched over by Machines of Loving Grace
Bridle “New Aesthetic” (Tumblr)
Soundings:
UNIT ONE: Theories of Media and Mediation
Note on “Screenings and Soundings”: These items are listed as ‘suggested’ media adjuvants to the
readings on theory and practice we will encounter in the given week—things I think nicely complement the
ideas and themes of the week. In all cases, I will attempt to make these materials available and accessible.
In our seminar discussions, I will occasionally relate these to the readings. I do not wish for these to take
the form of a requirement, however. Given the demands of life in graduate school, your time is short, and
when choosing what to devote your energies to, prioritize the readings above these materials (unless oth-
erwise indicated). You will notice several blanks too. I leave these open for our own invention and discovery
as a class.
6

7. Schedule
Week 8 (M 10/5 - W 10/7): In/Human Media and Mediating Humanness
Readings: Parikka, Insect Media; Brown “The Machine that (therefore) I Am”
Wegensten, Getting under the Skin; Boyle, “The (Rhetorical) Question Concerning Glitch”
Screenings: Cronenberg, Videodrome; The Fly
Soundings:
Week 9 (M 10/12 - W 10/14): The Archive and/as Medium
Readings: Sekula, “The Body and the Archive”; Derrida, Archive Fever; Ernst, “Media
Archaeography,” “Aura and Temporality: The Insistence of the Archive”; Skinnell,
“Circuitry in Motion: Rhetorical Moves in YouTube’s Archive.”
Screenings: Marker, Sans Soleil; Morrison, Decasia
Soundings: DJ Spooky, Girl Talk
UNIT TWO: Multimedia Practices
Week 10 (M 10/19 - W 10/21): Identity, Gender, Race, and Self after the Internet
Readings: Nakamura, Cybertypes; Chun, “Race and/as Technology, or How to Do Things
to Race”; Galloway, “Does the Whatever Speak?”
Screenings: 8-Bit Philosophy, “Why Do We Take Selfies?”; Ulman, “Excellences &
Perfections” (Instagram performance art project); Trecartin, “K-CoreaINC.K (section a)”
Soundings: Mykki Blanco, “Cosmic Angel: The Illuminati Princess”
Week 11 (M 10/26 - W 10/28): Sound in Media
Readings: Gitelman, “The Phonograph’s New Media Publics”; Barthes, “The Grain of the
Voice”; Dolar, “Che Bella Voce!” and “The Linguistics of Voice”; Hosokawa, “The Walkman
Effect”; Sterne, “The MP3 as Cultural Artifact”
Screenings/Soundings: “Serial” Podcast; John Cage, 4’33”
Week 12 (M 11/2 - W 11/4): Tactics and/of Media
Readings: Raley, Tactical Media; Lovink, “ABCs of Tactical Media”
CAE, The Electronic Disturbance
Screenings: Black Power Mixtape ; Electronic Disturbance Theater,
“Transborder Immigrant Tool”
Soundings:
Week 13 (M 11/9 - W 11/11): Mediating Politics and #Activism
Readings: Dean, Blog Theory; Wark, “A Hacker Manifesto”; Wolfson, Digital Rebellion
Occupy Wall Street documents; Black Lives Matter documents/tweets
Screening: Citizenfour
Soundings: Monáe/Wondaland Records, “Hell You Talmbout”
Week 14 (M 11/16 - W 11/18): Wearable Media and Biological Media
Readings: Thacker, “What Is Biomedia?”; Kac, “Life Transformation—Art Mutation”
Peterson, “Big Mother Is Watching You”
Screenings: Harvey, “CV Dazzle” and “Stealth Wear” projects.
Soundings:
Week 15 (M 11/30 - W 12/2): Presentations and Course Wrap-Up
7