Please note that the University and the Faculty of Arts have launched a new assessment policy effective as of 1 July 2021. This new policy particularly affects LATE SUBMISSION OF ASSIGNMENTS. 

The Faculty policy in relation to late assessment submissions is as follows: 

Unless a Special Consideration request has been submitted and approved, (a) a penalty for lateness will apply – 10 marks out of 100 credit will be deducted per day for assignments submitted after the due date – and (b) no assignment will be accepted seven days (incl. weekends) after the original submission deadline. No late submissions will be accepted for timed assessments – e.g. quizzes, online tests, etc. 

To be very clear:

• • Unless you have applied for special consideration and had your application approved, for each day your assignment is late, 10 marks will be deducted. For example, if you submit your assignment 7 days late, 70 marks will be deducted, which means you will fail that assignment.
  • If your assignment is more than 7 days late (including weekends), you will get 0 for your assignment.

These are serious penalties that will substantially alter your final grade and even determine whether you pass or fail this unit. Please make every effort to submit your assignment by the due date.

If you find you cannot submit your assignment on time, please apply for Special Consideration through AskMQ. Make sure you read Macquarie University's policy regarding Special Consideration requests before you apply: 

https://students.mq.edu.au/study/assessment-exams/special-consideration

Readings for the unit will be provided or made available on iLearn. Essays are to be submitted via Turnitin.

SEMINAR SCHEDULE

WEEK 2: INTRODUCTION: INTERNET HISTORY AND NETWORK THEORY

5 August

WEEK 3: WHAT IS THE AUTHOR?/ HISTORY OF THE AUTHOR

12 August

Michel Foucault, 'What Is an Author?' (1969)

Martha Woodmansee, 'On the Author Effect: Recovering Collectivity' (1994)

Aaron Meskin, 'Authorship' (2008) in Livingston and Plantinga (eds) The Routledge Companion toPhilosophy and Film, London: Routledge, 2008

Andrew Bennett, 'Authority, Ownership, Originality' in The Author(2005)

WEEK 4: THE NEAR-DEATH OF THE AUTHOR: POST-STRUCTURALISM, POSTMODERNISM & NETWORK CULTURE

19 August

Roland Barthes, 'The Death of the Author' (1969)

Andrew Murphie & John Potts, 'Digital Aesthetics: Cultural Effects of New Media Technologies' in Culture and Technology(2003)

William Deresiewicz, Chapter 10 in The Death of the Artist(2020)

Jonathan Taplin, ‘Pirates of the Internet’ in Move Fast and Break Things (2017)

WEEK 5: COPYRIGHT, TECHNOLOGY, DOWNLOADING & STREAMING

26 August

Cory Doctorow, 'How Copyright Broke' (2008)

Steve Collins, 'Kookaburra v. Down Under: It's Just Overkill' in Scan Journal Vol 7 No 1 2010

J. Smiers and M. Van Schijndel, 'A Level Cultural Playing Field' (2009)

Linda Jaivin, 'Big Content' in Phillipa McGuinness (ed) Copyfight(2015)

WEEK 6: FAN FICTION, BIG DATA, AI AND OTHER AUTHORSHIP CHALLENGES

2 September

Rebecca Tushnet, 'Architecture and Morality: Transformative Works, Transforming Fans'

in Darling and Pezanowski(eds) Creativity Without Law: Challenging the Assumptions of

Intellectual Property(2017)

Hannah Fry, 'Good artists borrow; great artists steal', from Hello World: Being Human in the Age of Algorithms (2018)

Rodley, Chris and Burrell, Andrew, 'On the Art of Writing with Data' in Potts, John (ed) The Future of Writing (2014) pp. 77 - 89, available as chapter download from library

WEEK 7: MEDIA INFRASTRUCTURES (Stefan Solomon)

9 September

This week we will focus on the material dimensions of networks, which are often overlooked in debates about digital technology. By considering the ways that electronic signals travel via a series of mobile towers, data centres, and undersea cables, we are able to gain a different, more physically-grounded perspective on modes of communication that can otherwise seem to be immaterial in nature.

Starosielski, N. (2015). ‘Fixed Flow: Undersea Cables as Media Infrastructure’. In L. Parks and N. Starosielski (Eds.), Signal Traffic: Critical Studies of Media Infrastructures (pp. 53-70). University of Illinois Press.

MID-SEMESTER BREAK

 WEEK 8: STREAMING CULTURES

30 September

In this seminar, we will think critically about a particular kind of digital form that many of us use on a daily basis: streaming technology. In particular, we will think about the rise of Netflix as a ubiquitous platform that has redefined our notions of television, and we will spend some time discussing the various social and environmental impacts of streaming as a mode of media delivery.

Lobato, R. (2019). Introduction. In R. Lobato, Netflix Nations: The Geography of Digital Distribution (pp. 1-17). New York University Press.

Lobato, R. (2019). What is Netflix? In R. Lobato, Netflix Nations: The Geography of Digital Distribution (pp. 18-45). New York University Press.

WEEK 9: COGNITIVE MAPPING

7 October

Is it possible to actually 'see' the mode of production under which we live? How might artists try to represent capitalism as a totality that is beyond human perception? This week we look at the concept of 'cognitive mapping,' an aesthetic approach that was coined by Fredric Jameson in the 1980s in response to the rise of neoliberalism. Examining this idea, we will consider its evolution (or failure) over the last three decades, with reference to examples from photography and cinema.

Toscano, A. and Kinkle, J. (2015). Introduction: The Limits of the Known Universe, or, Cognitive Mapping Revisited. In A. Toscano and J. Kinkle, Cartographies of the Absolute (pp. 11-27). Zero Books.

WEEK 10: BLOCKCHAIN AND BITCOIN

14 October

We follow last week's seminar on cognitive mapping by addressing a pair of significant contemporary concepts: 'blockchain' and 'bitcoin.' In the last decade, blockchain and bitcoin (alongside many other cryptocurrencies) have emerged in response to the need for secure, decentralised, peer-to-peer networks for recording transactions. What implications might such networks have for us beyond their immediate financial concerns?

Ferguson, F. (2019) ‘Bitcoin: A Reader’s Guide (The Beauty of the Very Idea)’. Critical Inquiry 46(1), 140-166. https://doi.org/10.1086/705302

WEEKS 11 - 13: STUDENT SEMINAR PRESENTATIONS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bennett, Andrew, The Author, London: Routledge, 2005

Bently, L., Davis, J. and Ginsburg, J (eds) Copyright and Piracy, Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2010

Bettig, Ronald V., Copyrighting Culture: The Political Economy of Intellectual Property,

Boulder: Westview, 1996

Borschke, Margie, This Is Not a Remix: Piracy, Authenticity and Popular Music, New York: Bloomsbury, 2017

Burke, Sean (ed) Authorship From Plato to the Postmodern: A Reader, Edinburgh:

Edinburgh University Press, 2000

Burke, Sean, The Death and Return of the Author, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010

Darling, Kate and Pezanowski, Aaron (eds) Creativity Without Law: Challenging the Assumptions of Intellectual Property, New York: New York University Press, 2017

Demers, Joanna, Steal this Music: How Intellectual Property Law Affects Musical

Creativity, Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2006

Deresiewicz, William, The Death of the Artist, New York: Henry Holt, 2020

Doctorow, Cory, Content:Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright and the Future of the Future, San Francisco: Tachyon Publications, 2008

Fry, Hannah, Hello World: Being Human in the Age of Algorithms, New York: W W Norton, 2018

Lessig, Lawrence, Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock

Down Culture and Control Creativity, New York: Penguin, 2004

Lobato, R.,  Netflix Nations: The Geography of Digital Distribution, New York University Press, 2019

McGuinness, Phillipa (ed)Copyfight, Sydney: NewSouth, 2015

Murphie, Andrew and Potts, John, Culture and Technology, Basingstoke: Palgrave

Macmillan, 2003

Postigo, Hector, The Digital Rights Movement, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2012

Potts, John (ed) The Future of Writing, Basingstoke: Palgrave Pivot, 2014

Reagle, Joseph and Koerner, Jackie (eds) Wikipedia @ 20: Stories of an Incomplete Revolution, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2020

Rose, Mark, Authors and Owners: The Invention of Copyright, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993

Simone, Daniela, Copyright and Collective Authorship, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019

Smiers, J. and Van Schijndel, M., Imagine There is No Copyright and No Cultural Conglomerates Too...,Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, 2009

Taplin, Jonathan, Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google and Amazon Have

Cornered Culture and What it Means For Us, New York: Macmillan, 2017

Woodmansee, Martha and Jaszi, Peter (eds) The Construction of Authorship, Durham:

Duke University Press, 1994

Zwar, Jan, Throsby, David, Longden, Thomas, Australian Authors: Industry Brief No. 1: Key

Findings, 2015,Department of Economics, Macquarie University at http://goto.mq.edu.au/book-industry

Zuboff, Shoshana, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, New York: Public Affairs, 2019