Literature, Arts and Media

Recommended Prerequisites

Proficiency in English.

Teaching Methods

Seminar sessions will combine lectures and discussion of texts, films, and other materials proposed for each session, as well as oral presentations by students and one final essay.

This methodology may be subject to minor changes depending on the instructor and number of students registered.

Learning Outcomes

Students will

a) Understand the importance of the dichotomies organic/technical, real/virtual, natural/artificial, material/immaterial in the exploration of new processes of self-production, identification and imagination of the community;
b) Produce descriptions of the concept of avatar as a persona of the online world, as graphic mediator or formal representation of self and body in the cyberworld;
c) Integrate the notions of presence/co-presence and interface/immersion into a critical reflection on identity and virtual communities;
d) Understand the features of the normativity of online social interactions and their dependence on the conventions of off-line social relations;
e) Acquire the required skills to undertake research on the literary and cinematic projections and refractions of ‘virtual life’;
f) Understand different kinds of social networks, in particular those that have literary content, and determine the extent of innovation of virtual culture in the university context.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

Virtual Culture
I. Senses of the word ‘virtual’. Materialities of the ‘virtual’.
II. The history and study of virtual worlds.
III. Avatars and Meta-Worlds. The inscription of the body in virtual space.
IV. Techno-identities in digital culture.
V. Imagination of the virtual community. Social networking and gaming communities.
VI. ‘Virtual life’ in literature and cinema.

 

N.B. The syllabus may change in different editions of the course.

Head Lecturer(s)

Paulo Jorge da Silva Pereira

Assessment Methods

Assessment
In-class participation, including one oral presentation : 20.0%
Research work: 80.0%

Bibliography

Aboujaoude, E. (2011). Virtually You. The Dangerous Powers of the E-Personality. New York: Norton.
Blascovich, J., & J. N. Bailenson (2011). Infinite Reality: Avatars, Eternal Life, New Worlds, and the Dawn of the Virtual Revolution. New York: Harper Collins.
Bracken, C.C., and P.D. Skalsi, eds. (2010). Immersed in Media: Telepresence in Everyday Life. New York: Taylor & Francis.
Coleman, B. (2011). Hello Avatar: The Rise of the Networked Generation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Grimshaw, M., ed. (2014). The Oxford Handbook of Virtuality. OUP.
Massumi, B. (2002). Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Durham, NC: Duke UP.
Munster, A. (2006). Materializing New Media: Embodiment in Information Aesthetics. Hanover: UP of New England.
Pearce, C. (2009). Communities of Play: Emergent Cultures in Multiplayer Games and Virtual Worlds. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Turkle, S. (2011). Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. New York: Basic Books.