Introduction To Media Theory Spring 2013 B Hanrahan Syllabus

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Hanrahan, Introduction to Media Theory, Spring 2013, PMA 4100, COML 4790, GERST 4115, VISST 4100
Introduction to Media Theory
PMA 4100, COML 4790, GERST 4115, VISST 4100

Cornell University, Department of Performing and Media Arts
Spring 2013

Wednesday 2.30-4.25pm, White Hall 106.

Instructor: Bran Hanrahan Office Hours: Tuesday 4:30-6.00pm and by appt.
Office: 428 Schwartz Center
Phone: 607 254-2791
Email: beh76@cornell.edu
Here is the apparatus! Climb in!
Bertolt Brecht, Der Lindberghflug
Course Description

Through close reading and analysis of selected canonical and contemporary works of media
theory, this seminar presents a cross-section of critical reflection on technologies, media and
media systems ranging from the printing press to photography, from gramophones to radio
technologies, from pre-cinematic optical devices to film and television, and from telephony to
the Internet. Topics include the relationship between representation and technology, the history
and the historicity of perception, the interplay of aesthetics, technology and politics, and the
effect of the media environment on notions of imagination, literacy, communication, reality and
truth. Familiarity with aesthetic and cultural theory and with the history of media is not assumed.
However, both the sophisticated conceptual level of many of the readings and the substantial
reading load make this course most appropriate for advanced undergraduates and those happy
(happiest, even) working with dense theoretical material.

Given the scope of what can be and have been considered media from ancient inscriptions to
smart phones, from language systems to cinema screens, from love to light bulbs
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and the vast
array of theories and approaches used to think about them, this seminar is necessarily selective,
focusing on a small number of key issues and discussions. Although we will read numerous texts
considered canonical in more than one discipline, introduction here is not meant in the sense
of the transmission of a body of foundational knowledge. Instead, you might think of the course
as introductory in the way that a short stay in a large, exciting and unfamiliar city is an
introduction a series of journeys, explorations and unfamiliar encounters, sometimes

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On the last two examples, see Niklas Luhmann, Liebe als Passion: Zur Codierung von Intimitt, (Frankfurt am M.:
Suhrkamp, 1968/1994); Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man [1964], (Cambridge:
MIT Press, 1994), 8-9.

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confusing and always partial, but which will nonetheless leave you knowing vastly more about
the place.

Required Texts
There are five required books, available at the Cornell University Bookstore. Ideally, you should
obtain a copy of the editions listed, but if necessary, some other edition is OK.

Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida, (New York: Hill and Wang, 2010), ISBN: 978-
0374532338.
Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, (New York: Picador, 2003), ISBN: 978-
0312422196.
Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, (MIT Press, 1994), ISBN: 978-0262631594.
Jonathan Sterne, MP3: the Meaning of a Format, (Duke U.P, 2012), ISBN: 978-
0822352877.
Vilm Flusser, Into the Universe of Technical Images, (Minneapolis: Minnesota U.P.,
2011), ISBN: 978-0816670215.
All other required readings (listed below as Read:) as well as occasional images, film clips,
sound recordings etc. will be made available on Blackboard as pdfs. I will try to make
available as many of the suggested further readings (Read More:) on Blackboard as possible.
Some of the readings were not originally written in English: if you can read the original text in
German or French, you are strongly encouraged to do so where possible, the originals will be
made available alongside the English translation.

Format and Requirements
The course will mostly be taught as a seminar: intensive discussion in a well-prepared,
committed group. The course relies on your engagement with the material before class and with
each other during class. Your regular attendance, thorough preparation and active
participation are expected and will make up a significant proportion of your final grade,
reflecting their importance for the seminar. Skimming or idly reading is not adequate
preparation: while I do not ask you to complete formal reading responses, you must take time
before class to properly engage with the assigned texts and to reflect on the questions raised. You
should, in other words, come to class not only having read the assigned text, but prepared at
every session to give a short resume of the principal arguments of the readings and just as
important ready to pose questions about aspects which remained unclear and/or seem to
demand further discussion. For most people, the process of engaged reading and understanding is
greatly helped by annotating, underlining and abstracting the texts as you go along.

As well as the set books, required readings will be available as pdf copies on Blackboard. You

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must bring a copy to class you should ideally print these out, even if you prefer to read and
annotate on screen. Attendance policy is strict. More than two unexcused absences will mean
your grade is lowered: each further absence after two will lower your final grade by one-third of
a grade. Be on time coming late to class is very disruptive, and substantial lateness will count
as half an absence. Let me know ahead of time if you have to miss class, if you will be
considerably late or if you need to leave early. Anyone using an electronic device for non-class
purposes during class (e.g. Facebook) will be counted accurately as being half-absent for that
session. Written work should be submitted punctually: for each day a paper is late, I will deduct
half a letter grade in other words, 5 percentage points, for example resulting in a downgrade
from A- (91%) to B (86%).

Assignments and Grading

There are two writing assignments: the first is a short mid-term essay (c. 5 pages). The paper
should use a concept or a thought or an idea from one of the readings in the first part of the
semester as a tool or a lens in order to analyze something that particularly interests you. This
something might be a film, an image, a text or a medium. Or it could be something less
discrete and defined: a mode of behavior (the way people use their phones while waiting for the
bus) or a media-aesthetic experience (why you like watching TV sports in HD, but hate watching
other kinds of programming in that format). The tool or lens can be something explicitly
named and foregrounded indexicality or Williams flow or Barthes punctum or the
festive viewing of television as outlined by Dayan and Katz. Or it might be some other
thought, word or idea (e.g. Susan Sontag writing that there is shame as well as shock in looking
at the close-up of a real horror or the way W.J.T. Mitchell keeps coming back to the paradox of
media). As long as its useful to you, it is OK but you must briefly outline what this tool or lens
is, where it comes from and how you will use it.

The final assignment is a longer paper (approximately 10-12 pages) on a subject of your choice,
agreed with me ahead of time, due on Monday May 13. This is an exercise in research, reflection
and thoughtful writing you need to start thinking about a topic at the latest by the end of
March. On May 1, our last session, youll be expected to briefly present (1-2 minutes) your
intended topic and argument in class. For graduate students, the final paper should be in the
region of 15-20 pages. In addition, graduate students should meet with me at least once in the
course of the semester to discuss how the content of the course and your intended paper topic fits
with your broader program of study.

You will give one in-class presentation in the course of the semester, introducing one or more
of the days assigned readings: this should be incisive, analytical and to the point, never more
than 12 minutes long. The presentation should be both a service and a gift to the rest of the class
make it clear, make it useful, make it good.

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Due dates:

Midterm paper Thursday March 14
Final paper Monday May 13

Grading
Preparation, class participation 20%
Mid-term paper (maximum 1500 words) 20%
In-class presentation 10%
Final paper 50%

Academic Integrity and Plagiarism
Do not plagiarize learn what plagiarism is and avoid it. On this and other questions of
academic ethics and standards, read the Cornell University Code of Academic Integrity,
available here: http://cuinfo.cornell.edu/Academic/AIC.html

The Medium Eva C., The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult, (Metropolitan Museum, 2005)

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Schedule
Any changes will be announced in class and confirmed by email.

Week 1 Introduction Reflecting on Media
Wednesday January 23
Read:
W.J.T. Mitchell, Addressing Media in What Do Pictures Want: The Lives and Loves of
Images, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 201-222
Listen/Watch [in class]

Trumpeter Landfrey and the Bugle Sounded at Waterloo, Edison Records (August 1890)
Patti Smith, intro to Hunter Captured by the Game, WBAI, May 28, 1975.
Datenstrudel/Mark Formanek, Standard Time, film/application, 2008-2011.

SECTION 1: PHOTOGRAPHIC EFFECTS AND AFFECTS
Week 2 Punctum, Aura, Index
Wednesday January 30
Read:
Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. Trans. Richard Howard.
(New York: Hill and Wang, 1981).
Mary Ann Doane, Indexicality: Trace and Sign, in differences (2007), vol. 18, number
1: 1-6.
Walter Benjamin, A Little History of Photography [1931], in Walter Benjamin: The
Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility and other Writings on Media,
ed. Brigid Doherty, Michael Jennings and Thomas Y. Levin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
U.P, 2008), 274-299.

Read More:
Symbol-Index-Icon in University of Chicago Keywords Glossary
Walter Benn Michaels, Photographs and Fossils, in (ed.) James Elkins, Photography
Theory, (London: Routledge, 2007), 431-450
Week 3 Auratic Analog, Dematerialized Digital?
Wednesday February 6
Read:

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Andr Bazin, The Ontology of the Photographic Image, [1945] in Andr Bazin, What is
Cinema, vol. 1, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 9-17.
Lev Manovich, Digital Cinema and the History of a Moving Image, in The Language
of New Media (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001), 249-258.
Tom Gunning, Whats The Point of an Index, or, Faking Photographs? in Still/Moving:
between Cinema and Photography, ed. Karen Beckman and Jean Ma, (Durham: Duke
University Press, 2008), 23-40.
Eric W. Rothenbuhler and John Durham Peters. Defining Phonography: An Experiment
in Theory, Musical Quarterly 81 no.2, (1997, summer): 242-264.
Laura Mulvey, The Pensive Spectator, in Death 24x a Second: Stillness and the
Moving Image, (London: Reaktion Books, 2006), 181-196.

Read More:

Philip Rosen, Subject, Ontology and Historicity in Bazin, in Change Mummified:
Cinema, Historicity, Theory, (University of Minnesota Press, 2001), 3-43.
Mary Ann Doane, The indexical and the concept of medium specificity, in Differences:
a Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, vol. 18, no. 1 (2007), special issue Indexicality:
trace and sign, 128-152.
Week 4 Photographic Images Ethics of Looking, Methods of Knowing
Read:
Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, (New York, Picador, 2003).
Errol Morris, Which Came First, The Chicken or the Egg? in Believing is Seeing:
Observations on the Mysteries of Photography (New York: Penguin, 2011).
Read More:

Judith Butler, Torture and the ethics of photography, Environment and planning. D,
Society & space, 25, no. 6, (2007), 951-966
SECTION 2: TELEVISION AND BEYOND
Week 5 What is Television? Where is Television?
Read:
Raymond Williams, Programming as Sequence or Flow, in Television: Technology and
Cultural Form. [1974]. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan UP, 1992, 77-120, esp. 86-96.

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Samuel M. Weber, Television: Set and Screen, in Mass Mediauras: Form, Technics,
Media, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 108-128.
Anna McCarthy, Shaping Public and Private Space with TV Screens, in Ambient
Television (Duke U.P. 2001), 117-155.
Daniel Chamberlain, Media Interfaces, Networked Media Spaces, and the Mass
Customization of Everyday Space, in Michael Kackman, ed., Flow TV: Television in the
Age of Media Convergence, (New York, NY: Routledge, 2010), 13-29.
Read More:

Stanley Cavell, The Fact of Television, in Daedalus 111:4, 75-96 (1982).
Week 6 Screen Liveness, Broadcast Time
Read:

Mary Ann Doane, Information, Crisis, Catastrophe in New Media, Old Media: A
History and Theory Reader, Hui Kyong Chun and Wendy and Thomas Keenan, eds.,
(London: Routledge, 2005), 251-264.
Jane Feuer, The Concept of Live Television: Ontology as Ideology, in E. Ann Kaplan,
ed., Regarding Television: Critical Approaches--An Anthology, (Los Angeles: American
Film Institute, 1983), 12-22.
Tara McPherson, Reload: Liveness, Mobility and the Web, in Nicholas Mirzoeff, ed.,
The Visual Culture Reader, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2002), 458-470.
Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz, Defining Media Events: High Holidays of Mass
Communication, in Media Events: The Live Broadcasting of History, (Cambridge, Ma.:
Harvard U.P., 1992), 1-24.
View/Listen More:

Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre of the Air, The War of the Worlds (first part),
[1938], 38 minutes.
Marc Lee, TV Bot 2.0, 2010
http://www.1go1.net/index.php/Main/TV-BOT

Read More:
Paddy Scannell, Dailiness, from Radio, Television and Modern Life (London:
Blackwell, 1996), 144-175.
Stephen T. Kern, The Present, in The Culture of Time and Space, 1880-1914
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1983), 64-87.

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Week 7 Beyond Television? Channels of Convergence and Dis-Integration
Wednesday March 6

Read:
Henry Jenkins, Worship at the Altar of Convergence: A New Paradigm for
Understanding Media Change, in Convergence Culture: Where New and Old Media
Collide, (New York: NYU Press, 2008), 1-25.
Jonathan Sterne, Formatted to Fit Your Screen and comments, Flow TV, January 28
2012.
William Uricchio, The Future of a Medium Once Known as Television, in The
YouTube Reader, eds. Pelle Snickars & Patrick Vonderau, (Stockholm: National Library
of Sweden, 2009), 24-39.
Bernard Stiegler, The Carnival of the New Screen: From Hegemony to Isonomy, in
The YouTube Reader, eds. Pelle Snickars & Patrick Vonderau, (Stockholm: National
Library of Sweden, 2009), 40-59.
Read More:

Chuck Tryon, Hollywood Remixed: Movie Trailer Mashups, Five-Second Movies, and
Film Culture, in Reinventing Cinema: Movies in the Age of Media Convergence (New
Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2009), 149-173.
John Seabrook, Streaming Dreams: YouTube Turns Pro, The New Yorker, Jan 16 2012,
24-30.
Jay David Bolter, Richard Grusin, Immediacy, Hypermediacy and Remediation, and
Mediation and Remediation, in Remediation: Understanding New Media, (MIT Press,
1999), 20-64.
MIDTERM PAPER DUE 3/14
To be emailed by 3 p.m. EST, Thursday March 14 2013. Early submissions are welcome.

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SECTION 3: MACHINES FOR PROCESSING
Week 8 Software/Hardware
Wednesday March 13
Read:
Geoffrey Winthrop-Young, Hardware/Software/Wetware, in Critical Terms for Media
Studies, edited by W.J.T. Mitchell and Mark Hansen, (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2010), 186-198.
Andrew Goffey, Algorithm, and Florian Cramer, Language, in Matthew Fuller (ed.),
Software Studies: A Lexicon, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008), 15-20, 168-174.
Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination,
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008), 1-23, 73-109.
Friedrich Kittler, There is no Software, Stanford Literature Review, 9,1, Spring 1992,
81-90
Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, On Software, or the Persistence of Visual Knowledge, Grey
Room 18, Winter 2004, 26-51.
- SPRING BREAK -
No class March 20

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Week 9 What are Computer Games For?
Wednesday March 27
Read:
Henry Jenkins, Games: The New Lively Art, in The Wow Climax: Tracing the
Emotional Impact of Popular Culture, (New York: NYU Press, 2006), 19-40.
Alexander R. Galloway, Allegories of Control, in Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic
Culture, (Minneapolis: Minnesota U.P., 2006), 85-106.
Claus Pias, The Game Players Duty: The User as the Gestalt of the Ports, in Erkki
Huhtamo and Jussi Parikka, eds., Media Archaeology: Approaches, Applications and
Implications (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 164-183.
Gilles Deleuze, Postscript on the Societies of Control, October, vol. 59 (Winter, 1992),
3-7.
N. Katherine Hayles, Cybernetics, in Critical Terms for Media Studies, edited by
W.J.T. Mitchell and Mark Hansen, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 145-
156.
Week 10 Processing Sound
Wednesday April 3
Read:
Jonathan Sterne, MP3: the Meaning of a Format, (Duke U.P, 2012), 1-128.
John Durham Peters, Helmholtz, Edison, and Sound History in Memory Bytes: History,
Technology, and Digital Culture. Ed. Lauren Rabinovitz and Abraham Geil. (Raleigh:
Duke University Press, 2004). 177-198.
Read More:
Friedrich Kittler, Introduction, Gramophone Film Typewriter, (Stanford: Stanford U.P.,
1999), 1-19.
Thomas Y. Levin, Tones from out of Nowhere: Rudolph Pfenninger and the
Archaeology of Synthetic Sound, Grey Room 12.12 (2003), 32-79
Mara Mills, Deafening: Noise and the Engineering of Communication in the Telephone
System, Grey Room 43, Spring 2011, 118143.

SECTION 4: HUMANS, MEDIA, HISTORY
Week 11 Image and History
Wednesday April 10
Read:

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Walter Benjamin, The Artwork in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility [second
version, 1935/36], in Walter Benjamin: The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological
Reproducibility and other Writings on Media, ed. Brigid Doherty, Michael Jennings and
Thomas Y. Levin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard U.P, 2008), 19-56.
Siegfried Kracauer, Photography [1927] in Siegfried Kracauer, The Mass Ornament:
Weimar Essays, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard U.P., 1995), 47-65.
Read More:

Miriam Bratu Hansen, Benjamins Aura. Critical Inquiry 34 (Winter 2008): 336-375.
Samuel Weber, Mass Mediauras, or, Art, Aura and Media in the Work of Walter
Benjamin, in Mass Mediauras: Form, Technics, Media, (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1996), 76-108.

Week 12 Humans/Media
Wednesday April 17

Read:

Bla Balzs, Early Film Theory: Visible Man, [1924], (New York: Berghahn, 2010), 9-
15.
Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man [1964], (Cambridge:
MIT Press, 1994), 3-73.
Marshall McLuhan, The Galaxy Reconfigured: or the Plight of Mass Man in an
Individualist Society, [from The Gutenberg Galaxy, 1962], in Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Nick
Montfort, eds., The New Media Reader, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003), 194-202.
Friedrich Kittler, The City is a Medium, New Literary History 27.4 (1996), 717-729.
Vilm Flusser, The City as Wave-Trough in the Image-Flood, Critical Inquiry, vol. 31,
no. 2 (winter 2005), 320-328.

Read More:

John Durham Peters, Introduction: Friedrich Kittlers Light Shows in Friedrich Kittler,
Optical Media, (Cambridge: Polity, 2010), 1-17.
Raymond Williams, From Medium to Social Practice, in Marxism and Literature,
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 158-164.

Week 13 Into the Universe of Technical Images
Wednesday April 24
Read:

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Vilm Flusser, Into the Universe of Technical Images, (Minneapolis: Minnesota U.P.,
2011).

Week 14 Into the Future, Into the Past
Wednesday May 1

Watch:

Werner Herzog (dir.), Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2011)
Chris Marker (dir.), La Jete (1962)

Read:

Peter Sloterdijk, Actio in Distans On Forms of Tele-Rational World-making, in
Garnet C. Butchart and Briankle Chang, eds., Philosophies of Communication,
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 2012), 635-648.

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