Syllabus for English 295
Lighting the Page: Digital Methods in Literary Studies

First day: This day will include an introduction to the course, an overview of the semester, and an exercise exploring the concept of affordances.

• First chapter of James Gleick, The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood
• Elizabeth Bishop, "One Art"

This assignment consists of two parts.

First, by 9:00 Thursday evening, write a paragraph on our shared OneDrive document introducing yourself to the class. This assignment will both serve its obvious social purpose and ensure that everyone is accessing our OneDrive site smoothly.

Second, prepare for this session by reading the Gleick chapter and preparing to apply its ideas to "One Art" in conversation with the class.

As a class, we will conduct an initial "environmental scan" of work in the digital humanities, with an emphasis on literary studies. The basis for our scan will be Friday's discussion of The Information in relation to Bishop's poem. At the end of that discussion, the class will have divided into groups that want to investigate the work being done relating do different kinds of literary information. The groups and then the class will work together to create a wiki-style compilation of the results of our scan. I will provide a link to the page we will work on together.

The assignment for today has two components: first, read this chapter, which will provide the framework for many of our conversations about electronic literature:

• Noah Wardrip-Fruin, "Five Elements of Digital Literature" (Pweb Documents section)

Second, after you have read the Wardrip-Fruin chapter completely, go back and use hypothes.is (see the next paragraph) to make two annotations of different kinds on it: one that points to something you do not understand or that prompts a question, and one that explains a connection or new idea that the chapter sparked in your thinking. Complete this assignment by midnight before class so that I can use your annotations to structure our discussion.

For this assignment, you will first need to sign up for and install hypothes.is, a Chrome extension or bookmarklet that will allow us to collectively annotate web pages. Here is a quick start guide for students.

In class, we will return to affordances and "One Art" in light of today's readings.

Look at and play with the following examples of digital texts and ways to make them:

• Language Is a Virus modules for Visual Poetry and Cutup Machine (with Tristan Tzara's "How to Make a Dadaist Poem)
• Furtherfield, The 27th. El 27.
• CMG, "creak, creak"

Side note: Many of our examples come from the Electronic Literature Organization's collections of e-lit, which you are welcome (but not required) to explore further.

Come to class ready to do a Five Elements analysis of the electronic readings for today.

Before class, create a bit of interactive text using Twine! Use Allison Parrish's introductory tutorial, installing the software and working at least through "Saving and Sharing Your Game." Your story/game can be tiny, as long as it works. In class, you'll have time to ask questions, troubleshoot, and add to your new Twine skillz.

• Charles Baxter on the Request Moment

Write a substantial scene* in Twine that involves (at any point) a "request moment" of the kind that Baxter describes. Make sure that your scene features not just an ordinary question but a true Baxterian request: one forces a choice by the requestee because saying yes will involve giving up some autonomy to perform the requested action. As Baxter says, such a request can reveal power relationships and social dynamics in your scene (and then your story).

With our discussions of electronic literature in mind, do your best to use the affordances of Twine to create a reading experience that combines the traditional (pre-digital) request moment with the new ways of writing that the digital format allows. If you are stuck thinking of a starting point, you may wish to use another piece of literature--whether digital or not--as an inspiration or starting point. Just be sure to acknowledge your source and transform the inspiration into something new.

*If your use of the digital technology makes "scene" the wrong word for what you're doing, that's fine: write something of similar length and substance to a scene of a story, whatever its shape.

We will share and discuss your scenes in class.

Twine tech day! Prepare for today's class by looking at the rest of Allison Parrish's introduction, the Twine wiki, or other people's Twine stories to find an effect you would like to create in your own story, such as changing its appearance or adding a javascript action. Spend about two hours researching and working on this effect. We will use class time to share and troubleshoot your techniques.

Create a working version of your final Twine project. This version does not need to be complete, but it needs to be substantial enough to show your classmates how your concept will work in practice. Come to class ready to share and workshop your project.

Come to class prepared to do a one-minute lightning presentation of your final Twine project. We will spend the second half of class trying out everyone's projects.

ELECTRONIC LITERATURE PROJECTS DUE by 5:00 TODAY. Send me a set of links that allow me to read all three components of your project.

Because you will be finishing your projects at this point, there is no reading assignment for today. We will start reading the beginning of The Tempest together in class.

NOTE: The text analysis learning journal will ask you to document much of the work you do during this part of the class. Look ahead to that assignments so that you are preparing appropriately for it as we go through these weeks of the semester.

• The Tempest, Act I
• Robert Dale Parker, "Postcolonial and Race Studies," from How to Interpret Literature (PWeb)

Before class, using hypothes.is to comment on this electronic text, write two or three sentences about a specific point in the text that you want to connect to something in Parker's piece. We will use some of these annotations (chosen at random) to initiate conversations in our class session.

• The Tempest, Acts II and III

Before class, using hypothes.is to comment on this electronic text, write two or three sentences about a specific point in the text that you want to connect to the conversation we had about the play on Monday. We will use some of these annotations (chosen at random) to initiate conversations in our class session.

• Lou Burnard, Introduction to What Is the Text Encoding Initiative?
• Natalie M. Houston, "Text Analysis", from the MLA Commons
• Matt Kiser, "Introduction to Natural Language Processing (NLP)"

Today's discussion will set up our third and final unit on computational text analysis. Do the readings carefully, then, by midnight the night before class, use hypothes.is to annotate one of the readings with a question that the readings prompted you to consider.

In class, we will talk about the advantages and disadvantages of the TEI and NLP. We will do an exercise using the techniques of the TEI.

• The Tempest, Acts IV and V

Before class, using hypothes.is to comment on this electronic text, write two or three sentences about a specific point in the text that helps you think about a question you might be interested in using computers to answer about Shakespeare. We will use some of these annotations (chosen at random) to initiate conversations in our class session.

• Andrew Goldstone and Ted Underwood, "What can topic models of PMLA teach us about the history of literary scholarship?"
• James Lee et al., ""Linked Reading: Digital Historicism and Early Modern Discourses of Race around Shakespeare's Othello"

For each of the two articles, by midnight the night before class, use hypothes.is to identify a specific sentence that you find to be the thesis of the piece. Come to class ready to discuss elements of the article that the thesis you have identified does and does not capture.

Before class, in your text analysis learning journal, write a paragraph about your current perception of the strengths of the TEI and topic modeling. What kind of application would you use each of them for?

Class today will involve a workshop on topic modeling based on the readings.

• Heather Froelich, "Moby Dick Is about Whales, Or Why Should We Count Words?"
• Reading from Writing Analytially about word-counting (PWeb)

Do the Writing Analytically word-counting exercise on Natalie Houston's short essay on text analysis. Bring your results to class.

• Ben Blatt, Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve, introduction and chapters 1 and 2
• Anne Enright, "Diary"

The Blatt chapters and the Enright piece both address points of literary style and even methods of counting, but they do so from different perspectives: Blatt's method involves computing, for instance, whereas Enright concerns herself with structures of social power. By midnight the night before class, use hypothes.is to annotate the Enright piece with one way in which you might merge these kinds of thinking, either by adding an Enright-like concern with social issues to Blatt's methods or by applying something like Blatt's methods to a point that Enright raises.

• Christopher Ingraham, "The 'i before e, except after c' Rule Is a Giant Lie"

Bring to class a numbered set of instructions for testing the "i before e rule" given a lexicon (word list) of English words. Imagine that you are writing the instructions not for a computer--this is not a programming exercise--but for a human with extraordinary willingness to spend a great deal of time following your instructions. Make your instructions as precise and useful as possible, with the goal of producing a method superior to the one described in the article.

• Ben Blatt, Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve, chapters 3 and 9
• 99 Percent Invisible, The Backward Index (short article and brief video; optionally, you can also listen to the beginning of the "mini-stories" podcast episode, whose first segment covers the backward index as well)

Bring to class, in writing, one idea of some way to adapt or extend the kind of work you've read about for today.

• Christopher Curley, "Chopping the Words Out of Famous Books Creates Pretty Punctuation Art"
• Examples of sous rature, or "writing under erasure," from Alan Liu's tweet
• Tracy K. Smith, "Declaration" (and, for context, The Declaration of Independence)
• The New Yorker Poetry Podcast: "Tracy K. Smith Reads Matthew Dickman" (and her own "Declaration," which is the part we'll concentrate on
• Tom Phillips, A Humument: A Treated Victorian Novel, description and slideshow

Bring to class, in writing, one idea of some way to adapt or extend the kind of work you've read about for today. You will share those ideas briefly, and then we will talk about some erasure-related Python code.

• Griffin Mareske (Grinnell '20), Erasamatizer 3000, including the "Help+Gallery" section

Experiment with the Erasamatizer, including attempting erasures of your own texts. Then bring to class five copies of a page of text that you would like to turn into an erased poetry project.

In today's class, we will have a fun, pre-break prototyping workshop about erasure.

Readings for the week: use hypothes.is to enter two annotations (2-3 sentences each) by Wednesday at 9:00 a.m. (Iowa time), then copy your annotations into your learning journal. (That's two annotations total for the week, not for each reading.)

• Christopher Curley, "Chopping the Words Out of Famous Books Creates Pretty Punctuation Art"
• Examples of sous rature, or "writing under erasure," from Alan Liu's tweet
• Tracy K. Smith, "Declaration" (and, for context, The Declaration of Independence)
• The New Yorker Poetry Podcast: "Tracy K. Smith Reads Matthew Dickman" (and her own "Declaration," which is the part we'll concentrate on
• [optional:] Tom Phillips, A Humument: A Treated Victorian Novel, description and slideshow

I will be in my Webex room from 10:00 to 11:00 Iowa time on Wednesday for conversation with anyone who wants to talk about the readings.

Hands-on exercise for the week: enter your results (if appropriate) and a paragraph of reflection in your learning journal by the end of Friday.

• Griffin Mareske (Grinnell '20), Erasamatizer 3000, including the "Help+Gallery" section (SEE NOTE IMMEDIATELY BELOW)
• Find-and-replace Python script (supplied by Professor Simpson)

Note: the Erasamatizer is not currently functioning because its software platform got updated in the background. Do still take a look at it; you'll see how the tool is meant to work through the "Help+Gallery" section.

I will be in my Webex room for my Lighting the Page-specific office hour at 10:00 Iowa time on Friday to help with this exercise in case you're having any trouble.

For this hands-on exercise, you can choose one of two options that are described in the instruction sheet.

Readings for the week: use hypothes.is to enter two annotations (2-3 sentences each) by Wednesday at 9:00 a.m. (Iowa time), then copy your annotations into your learning journal. (That's two annotations total for the week, not for each reading.)

• Bruce Schneier, from Data and Goliath (PWeb Documents--you can annotate PDFs with hypothes.is if you use the Chrome browser)
• Madeline Coleman, "Closed Captions"
• Geoffrey Nunberg, "Google's Book Search: A Disaster for Scholars"

I will be in my Webex room from 10:00 to 11:00 Iowa time on Wednesday for conversation with anyone who wants to talk about the readings.

Hands-on exercise for the week: enter your results (if appropriate) and a paragraph of reflection in your learning journal by the end of Friday.

I will be in my Webex room for my Lighting the Page-specific office hour at 10:00 Iowa time on Friday to help with this exercise in case you're having any trouble.

Object description exercise: See the file called "295 S20 metadata exercise object description" in the OneDrive folder of Hands-On Exercises. Remember to make your own copy of the document before filling it out.

Readings for the week: use hypothes.is to enter two annotations (2-3 sentences each) by Wednesday at 9:00 a.m. (Iowa time), then copy your annotations into your learning journal. (That's two annotations total for the week, not for each reading.)

• Cathy O'Neil, from Weapons of Math Desctruction (PWeb Documents--you can annotate PDFs with hypothes.is if you use the Chrome browser)
• Safiya Umoja Noble, from Algorithms of Oppression (PWeb Documents--you can annotate PDFs with hypothes.is if you use the Chrome browser)

I will be in my Webex room from 10:00 to 11:00 Iowa time on Wednesday for conversation with anyone who wants to talk about the readings.

Hands-on exercise for the week: enter your results (if appropriate) and a paragraph of reflection in your learning journal by the end of Friday.

I will be in my Webex room for my Lighting the Page-specific office hour at 10:00 Iowa time on Friday to help with this assignment in case you're having any trouble.

Given the readings for the week, this hands-on exercise is a straightforward writing assignment. Write a short response essay of about 400 words addressing one change you would like to see in data/metadata culture. You can use an example from the readings and add your own thoughts about it, or you can choose another example you know about.

Readings for the week: use hypothes.is to enter two annotations (2-3 sentences each) by Wednesday at 9:00 a.m. (Iowa time), then copy your annotations into your learning journal. (That's two annotations total for the week, not for each reading.)

Note: in this case, it's probably best to put your annotations on the Sample article or the Pentametron article, even if you want to comment on something else.

• Mark Sample, "A Protest Bot Is a Bot So Specific You Can't Mistake It for Bullshit"
• Article about Pentametron and the bot itself
• Every Rat in NYC
• Other Twitter bots: tiny star fields, Multi-Scale Truchet Patterns
• And special current events bots! Soapy Karaoke, Quarantine Bot, Coriolavirus, and most importantly, More Hugs Bot

I will be in my Webex room from 10:00 to 11:00 Iowa time on Wednesday for conversation with anyone who wants to talk about the readings.

Hands-on exercise for the week: enter your results (if appropriate) and a paragraph of reflection in your learning journal by the end of Friday.

I will be in my Webex room for my Lighting the Page-specific office hour at 10:00 Iowa time on Friday to help with this exercise in case you're having any trouble.

Twitter bot workshop: Work through a Twitter Bot-building exercise that Christina Brewer (my student collaborator on the first version of this course) and I have constructed. The workshop instructions are here. Unless you run into technical trouble, complete the steps at least to the point where you have successfully generated a sample Tweet.

Readings for the week: use hypothes.is to enter two annotations (2-3 sentences each) by Wednesday at 9:00 a.m. (Iowa time), then copy your annotations into your learning journal. (That's two annotations total for the week, not for each reading.)

• Ben Blatt, Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve, chapters 4 and 5
• Joseph Williams, from Style (PWeb Documents--you can annotate PDFs with hypothes.is if you use the Chrome browser)

I will be in my Webex room from 10:00 to 11:00 Iowa time on Wednesday for conversation with anyone who wants to talk about the readings.

Hands-on exercise for the week: enter your results (if appropriate) and a paragraph of reflection in your learning journal by the end of Friday.

I will be in my Webex room for my Lighting the Page-specific office hour at 10:00 Iowa time on Friday to help with this exercise in case you're having any trouble.

In anticipation of the final assignment, this exercise asks you to start using computational tools to look at your own writing.

Here are the instructions for the exercise.

• First, by the end of Monday, May 4th, send me a paragraph or two describing your plan for the final project. I will send you comments or questions about the plan.
• Second, I will organize an opportunity for you to spend up to an hour talking to a small group of classmates about your ideas for the project in the middle of the week.
• Finally, by the end of the week, I will check in with each of you individually. You will sign up for a time, and we will converse by (your choice of) video, phone, or typed chat.

FINAL PROJECT DUE BY 5:00