Andy's MTD Notes
esse quam videri
Contents
Andy's Syllabus
My version of the syllabus has slightly changed assignments and course schedule. Andy's Syllabus
Week 1 Resources
- Go over Syllabus, introductions (1 hour)
- Introduce Second Life, Middle East postal history exhibit on I Am Columbia sim, etc (30 min)
- Assign: Project 1 (non-western alphabet), Read Chaps 1-3 Berger (15 min)
- Field Trip: Center for Book and Paper Arts, Book and Paper Arts Triennial, Discuss artists' books as media, what is a book? (1 hour)
Week 2 Resources
- Discuss Alphabet Assignment (students will present their findings on non-western alphabets)(45 min)
- Discuss Berger Chaps 1-3 (30 min)
- Saussure: Semiology or Semiotics
- Write on screen "I went to a book sale and all I bought was a semicolon." Discuss what makes this funny? Illustrates: Saussure's assertion that language is a system of signs in which the meaning of a term is based on its relations to othr terms in the system. i.e. we would have expected to have purchased a book, not a small piece of punctuation (hey comedy is hard)
- signifier: sound object image
- signified: concept generated
- signs are identified in terms of oppositions, uniqueness
- The notion the liguistics might be useful in studying other cultural phenomena is based on two fundamental insights:
- first that social and cultural phenomena are mot simply material objects or events but objects and events with meaning, and hence signs;
- second that they do not have essences but are defined by a network of relations
- Barthes (Myth)
- semiology can be applied to history, culture;
- sees problems with normativity (mythmaking)
- cultural feedback loop: this is the way mass media works: if a "meme" gets picked up and widely distributed, it becomes the norm (Lots of parallels with Cool Hunting)
- Lakoff and Johnson (Metaphor and Metanymy)
- Semiology (semiotics) can have layers of meaning, impacting logic
- Love is war (metaphor works by similarity); Rolls Royce = wealth (metonymy works by association)
- James W. Carey's Two Models of Communication
- Saussure: Semiology or Semiotics
- Watch Edison's Miracle of Light. Videorecording (VHS). Elevator Pictures, Inc. for the American Experience. WGBH Boston. Matthew Collins, producer/writer. John Walter, director/writer. 1995. (1 hour)
- Assign Project 2, McCloud 1-3 (15 min)
Week 3 Resources
- Chicago Postal History (15 min)
- Present assignment 2, signifier and signified (1 hour)
- McCloud Chaps 1 - 3 (30 min)
- Telegraph
- OMD Telegraph (OMG!) (3 min)
- Get a Job (10 min)
- Telegraph (1 min)
- More on Telegraphy (20 min)
- Assign Project 3, signifier and signified: expanded 3 page essay; assign Berger Chaps 4 - 8
under development
etc...