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ENGL 475 Course website

English (ENGL) 475
Literature and Hypertext (Revision 1)

Delivery mode: Individualized study. Online enhanced.

Credits: 3 - Humanities

Prerequisite: ENGL 211 and ENGL 212 or equivalent first year English courses and one senior level English course.

Centre: Centre for Language and Literature

ENGL 475 has a Challenge for Credit option.

Course website

Overview

ENGL 475 is designed to introduce students to the study of the relationships between literary forms and digital media. Hypertext is composed of blocks of words, screens and images linked together electronically through multiple paths. Unlike the printed text, hypertext can only exist electronically. This course is organized into three parts: hypertext as an artistic medium, the politics of hypertext, and hypertext and literary studies.

Outline

Over a work schedule of 19 weeks students will read texts and hypertexts on the following topics: the archival text, the multiform story, visual narrative, game narrative, the rhetoric of hypertext, interactivity, cyberculture, theory and technology and the debate on new media. Students are expected to participate in the discussion board.

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Evaluation

To receive credit in ENGL 475, you must achieve a minimum grade of 50 percent on each assignment and a course composite grade of at least "D" (50 percent). The weight of each course assignment is as follows:

Assign 1 Assign 2 Assign 3 Discussion Board Total
30% 30% 30% 10% 100%

To learn more about assignments and examinations, please refer to Athabasca University's online Calendar.

Course Materials

Textbooks

Landow, George P. Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization (2006). Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

McLuhan, Marshall and Quentin Fiore. The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects. Corte Madera, CA: Gingko Press, 2001.

Murray, Janet H. Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. New York: The Free Press, 1997.

  • MYST Masterpiece Edition, 1999 (for PC)

*Note: If you require a Mac version of MYST, contact the AU library

  • Coverley, M.D. Califia. Watertown, MA: Eastgate Systems, 2000. (CD-ROM for PC)

OR

  • Jenik, Adriene. Mauve Desert: A CD-ROM Translation. Los Angeles: Shifting Horizon Productions, 1997. CD-ROM for Macintosh.

Special Instructional Features

Students must have access to a computer with the minimum of a 4.X+ browser—either Netscape or Microsoft Explorer—a Pentium, Celeron or faster processor, Intel or Intel compatible running Windows 95 or better, 16 MB of RAM, a 4X CD-ROM drive, a sound card and speakers.

For Macintosh users contact the course professor first.

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