Readings: There are no readings for next week, or more precisely you do not need to read the articles on the syllabus. I will cover the positions of Aarseth and Ryan in class. If you are interested in looking at their respective pieces you can access them via eReserve. (Email me for the password. “The man” won’t let me post it, something about copyright . . .). I have eliminated the readings so that you can have time to work on the following two assignments due next week (one on Tuesday, one on Thursday).
Assignment 1: Remediate Lolita. Due Tuesday at the beginning of class. You should envision what Lolita would look like presented in a different medium. For example you could imagine it as a video blog, or a digital game. Note that you do not necessarily need to remediate the exact content of Lolita (this is not about making a video game version of a book) rather try to capture what the essence of Lolita is as you see and present it in a different way. You do not need to come up with the full produce (i.e. no need to film five hours of a video blog) instead think of this as a concept document: a short write-up accompanied by visual material if necessary. Spend between two-three hours on this. I am not looking for something polished but rather an engagement with the concept. I will collect these in class on Tuesday, and then use them for Thursday’s discussion—so make them something you will be willing to show your classmates.
Assignment 2: Class Wiki. Add content to the Class Wiki. Keep in mind the idea here is not to have the cliff notes/plot synopsis kind of information one finds on Wikipedia, but rather to present critical perspectives on the media/objects we are discussing. Think of this as a space to formalize the notes from our class meetings. Eventually we want to strive for polished academic prose on this wiki (that means well formulated, grammatically correct, citations where appropriate, etc.), but for now concentrate on adding material and presenting it in a useable/readable manner. If you present an opinion on a matter make sure you recognize that not everyone would agree, and perhaps even explain what the other viewpoint is.
For those who are unfamiliar with Wikis, and want to try out editing pages before you work on the formal content I set up a Sandbox page (accessible from the main site).
P.S. If you have not already go sign up for a pbwiki identity and email me the email address you used to sign up, that way you can have access to edit the pages.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Ardra // Jan 25, 2008 at 7:55 pm
I’m not exactly sure what you mean by re-mediate. Is there an example I could view to “grok” your expectations?
2 dave // Jan 25, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Think about taking the story which is in one medium (novel) and telling it in another (blog, digital game, flash comic, ARG, etc.). A simple example would be a film remaking a novel (although you should try for more than just an adaptation). Note as it says above you don’t have to remediate the story, you could choose to remediate just part of it (the traveling across the country looking for clues), or something thematically related.
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