Re: [Air-L] advice on course readings
I taught Julian Dibbell’s A Rape in Cyberspace (1993) a couple of weeks ago, and it worked REALLY well. It’s a classic essay about a case of harassment in a text-only online space (LambdaMOO) in the early 1990s, and raises so many issues that are still really central: online harassment, identity, digital dualism, democracy and governance of online spaces etc etc. We always taught this essay in the early days, but I hadn’t in about 10 years and I’m so glad I did: the students loved it and it led to excellent discussions. Also, you can actually still log into LambdaMOO! (I used the Terminal app on a Mac to connect.) So having students actually spend a bit of time in a MOO would certainly let them think about what social media / computer mediated communication was like in 1993. Julian Dibbell: A Rape in Cyberspace. 1993/1998. http://www.juliandibbell.com/articles/a-rape-in-cyberspace/ How to log onto LambdaMOO http://www.cc.gatech.edu/classes/cs8113e_99_winter/lambda.html For blogs: chapter 2 of my book Blogging is kind of a history of blogs. “From Bards to Blogs.” Rettberg, Jill Walker. 2014a. Blogging. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Polity Press. There’s a short history of early online diaries and blogs in my chapter “Online Diaries and Blogs” for a forthcoming anthology on The Diary. http://jilltxt.net/txt/OnlineDiariesAndBlogs.pdf Howard Rheingold’s Virtual Communities was influential in the early 1990s, and is now freely available online. Chapter one on the WELL in the 80s might be good for students. http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/1.html Other books on the topic that were taught during the 1990s include Sherry Turkle’s Life on the Screen (if you teach that, couple it with Nathan Jurgenson on digital dualism https://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2012/04/23/sherry-turkles-chronic-di...), Steve Jones’ collection CyberSociety. Oh, if you want something on MUDs and MOOs, check out Cynthia Haynes and Jan Rune Holmevik’s collection "High Wired: On the Design, Use, and Theory of Educational MOOs” (University of Michigan Press, 1998) It’s not all about teaching, there are a few chapters that cover the history of MOOs and MUDs and what they are. There is much more of course. But this is some of it. Jill Jill Walker Rettberg Professor of Digital Culture Dept of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies University of Bergen Postboks 7800 5020 Bergen + 47 55588431 Blog - http://jilltxt.net Twitter - http://twitter.com/jilltxt My book "Seeing Ourselves Through Technology: How We Use Selfies, Blogs and Wearable Devices to See and Shape Ourselves" is out on Palgrave as an open access publication - buy it in print or download it for free! http://jilltxt.net/books
If people don’t know it (I didn’t), there is also a play of this case, called “If you can get to Buffalo,” by Trish Harnetiaux. I spoke in a discussion about the case and the history with cast and audience after a performance in Los Angeles a coupe of years back, which is how I found out about it. I don’t know if the text might be available, or better yet a recording of a performance, but it would be an interesting supplement to the article. —p.
On Oct 19, 2016, at 1:13 PM, Jill Walker Rettberg <Jill.Walker.Rettberg@uib.no> wrote:
I taught Julian Dibbell’s A Rape in Cyberspace (1993) a couple of weeks ago, and it worked REALLY well. It’s a classic essay about a case of harassment in a text-only online space (LambdaMOO) in the early 1990s, and raises so many issues that are still really central: online harassment, identity, digital dualism, democracy and governance of online spaces etc etc. We always taught this essay in the early days, but I hadn’t in about 10 years and I’m so glad I did: the students loved it and it led to excellent discussions. Also, you can actually still log into LambdaMOO! (I used the Terminal app on a Mac to connect.) So having students actually spend a bit of time in a MOO would certainly let them think about what social media / computer mediated communication was like in 1993.
Julian Dibbell: A Rape in Cyberspace. 1993/1998. http://www.juliandibbell.com/articles/a-rape-in-cyberspace/
How to log onto LambdaMOO http://www.cc.gatech.edu/classes/cs8113e_99_winter/lambda.html
For blogs: chapter 2 of my book Blogging is kind of a history of blogs. “From Bards to Blogs.” Rettberg, Jill Walker. 2014a. Blogging. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Polity Press.
There’s a short history of early online diaries and blogs in my chapter “Online Diaries and Blogs” for a forthcoming anthology on The Diary. http://jilltxt.net/txt/OnlineDiariesAndBlogs.pdf
Howard Rheingold’s Virtual Communities was influential in the early 1990s, and is now freely available online. Chapter one on the WELL in the 80s might be good for students. http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/1.html
Other books on the topic that were taught during the 1990s include Sherry Turkle’s Life on the Screen (if you teach that, couple it with Nathan Jurgenson on digital dualism https://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2012/04/23/sherry-turkles-chronic-di...), Steve Jones’ collection CyberSociety.
Oh, if you want something on MUDs and MOOs, check out Cynthia Haynes and Jan Rune Holmevik’s collection "High Wired: On the Design, Use, and Theory of Educational MOOs” (University of Michigan Press, 1998) It’s not all about teaching, there are a few chapters that cover the history of MOOs and MUDs and what they are.
There is much more of course. But this is some of it.
Jill
Jill Walker Rettberg Professor of Digital Culture Dept of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies University of Bergen Postboks 7800 5020 Bergen
+ 47 55588431
Blog - http://jilltxt.net Twitter - http://twitter.com/jilltxt My book "Seeing Ourselves Through Technology: How We Use Selfies, Blogs and Wearable Devices to See and Shape Ourselves" is out on Palgrave as an open access publication - buy it in print or download it for free! http://jilltxt.net/books
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In addition to the excellent recommendations by others, may I recommend taking a look at my article that examines the socio-technical construction of early email? It was published by The Charles Babbage Institute’s unfortunately short-lived Iterations journal, and is available here: http://www.cbi.umn.edu/iterations/kilker.pdf. Many of the article’s findings continue to be relevant for internet and society courses. Best regards, —Julian Julian Kilker, Ph.D. Associate professor, Emerging Media Graduate Coordinator Vice Head, AEJMC Visual Communication Division School of Journalism and Media Studies Greenspun Hall The University of Nevada, Las Vegas 4505 Maryland Pkwy. Las Vegas, NV 89074-5007 https://faculty.unlv.edu/jkilker | 702.895.3729 On 2016-10-19 12:22 PM, air-l-request@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:air-l-request@listserv.aoir.org> wrote:
Re: [Air-L] advice on course readings
m teaching a graduate seminar for MS and PhD students called “internet and society” next spring. I’m looking for good readings (book chapters and/or journal articles) on two subjects: - history of asynchronous communication platforms (USENET, BBS, blogs, wikis, etc.) - history of synchronous communication platforms (MUDs, chat environments, etc.) -- Gabriella Coleman Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy Department of Art History & Communication Studies McGill University 853 Sherbrooke Street West Montreal, PQ H3A 0G5 http://gabriellacoleman.org/ <http://gabriellacoleman.org/> 514-398-8572
Dear Adriana, I would add that the the Haubens' Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet offers good insight into the aspirations of the users of Usenet. Chris Leslie On Wed, Nov 16, 2016 at 12:31 PM, Julian Kilker <julian.kilker@gmail.com> wrote:
In addition to the excellent recommendations by others, may I recommend taking a look at my article that examines the socio-technical construction of early email? It was published by The Charles Babbage Institute’s unfortunately short-lived Iterations journal, and is available here: http://www.cbi.umn.edu/iterations/kilker.pdf.
Many of the article’s findings continue to be relevant for internet and society courses.
Best regards,
—Julian
Julian Kilker, Ph.D. Associate professor, Emerging Media Graduate Coordinator Vice Head, AEJMC Visual Communication Division School of Journalism and Media Studies Greenspun Hall
The University of Nevada, Las Vegas 4505 Maryland Pkwy. Las Vegas, NV 89074-5007 https://faculty.unlv.edu/jkilker | 702.895.3729
On 2016-10-19 12:22 PM, air-l-request@listserv.aoir.org <mailto: air-l-request@listserv.aoir.org> wrote:
Re: [Air-L] advice on course readings
m teaching a graduate seminar for MS and PhD students called “internet and society” next spring.
I’m looking for good readings (book chapters and/or journal articles) on two subjects: - history of asynchronous communication platforms (USENET, BBS, blogs, wikis, etc.) - history of synchronous communication platforms (MUDs, chat environments, etc.)
-- Gabriella Coleman Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy Department of Art History & Communication Studies McGill University 853 Sherbrooke Street West Montreal, PQ H3A 0G5 http://gabriellacoleman.org/ <http://gabriellacoleman.org/> 514-398-8572 _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/ listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Christopher S. Leslie, Ph.D. Co-Director and Lecturer, Science and Technology Studies Faculty Fellow in Residence for Othmer Hall and Clark Street Vice Chair, IFIP History of Computing Working Group 9.7 NYU Tandon School of Engineering 5 MetroTech Center, LC 131 Brooklyn, NY 11201 (646) 997-3130
participants (4)
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Christopher Leslie -
Jill Walker Rettberg -
Julian Kilker -
Paul Dourish