We will critically engage the electronic culture in which we are immersed through a study of literary and cultural sites on the World Wide Web. The superabundance of information, decenteredness, and continual change on the Internet demand a new textual strategy from literary writers if their work is not to become irrelevant in what has been called "the late age of print." We will read William Gibson's Neuromancer, Richard Powers's Galatea 2.2, Samuel R. Delany's Neveryóna, Don DeLillo's White Noise, and other print fiction that responds to the crises of technology and information science in ways that have enriched contemporary culture.

We will also examine recently released hypertext scholarly editions on CD-ROM that bring multimedia resources-graphics, sound, manuscript evidence, critical and bibliographical sources-to bear on familiar literary texts. We will then turn to examples of hypertext fiction and poetry created specifically for a digital, hyperlinked environment such as Michael Joyce's afternoon: a story, Stuart Moulthrop's Victory Garden, and the Electronic Poetry Center on UB Wings.

In addition to reading fiction, poetry, and critical theory in both print and electronic formats, students will participate in classroom multimedia exercises utilizing the computer and Ethernet equipped teaching station. They will participate in an on-line discussion list for English 370. And they will contribute to the development of a course web site devoted to an author or other literary-electronic topic (knowledge of HTML is not a prerequisite). Requirements include three essays and an on-line digital project.

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Last Revised Tuesday, August 25, 1998