Syllabus 2016
Basics
Fall 2016 Publishing Program Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology SFU Vancouver Harbour Centre
Course Description: Technology and the Evolving Book explores the dramatic, controversial, and sometimes baffling movement within the book industry today as writers, readers, and markets move increasingly online. This course attempts to envision the future of the book by making sense of their past and present, and by understanding the technological and social forces that have shaped their trajectory. In doing so, it explores developments in the way books are produced, marketed, distributed, retailed, and perceived.
Approach: Each class will include a short lecture as well as extensive opportunities for student-led discussion informed by the week’s readings. Students will be expected to arrive in class not just having done the readings but ready to develop and express informed opinions about that week’s topic.
Course Goals: Students will become familiar with major theoretical and practical debates surrounding technology/media and its relation to publishing; will be exposed to different technologies/media, past and present; will intervene in debates about the present and future of publishing; and will become familiar with practical project management skills, including collaborations, planning, and moving from pitch to final product.
Required Reading: Only one book is required for this course (Andrew Piper’s Book Was There: Reading in Electronic Times). You may read it in hard copy or as an ebook. All other readings are linked from this page.
Instructor: Hannah McGregor (hannah_mcgregor@sfu.ca), SFU Harbour Centre Office 3575
Lecture/Seminar: Tuesdays 2:30 pm–5:20 pm, SFU Harbour Centre room 1530
Office Hours: By appointment
September 6
Welcome to PUB 401
Setting the stage, course expectations, assignments, and other details.
Part One: Theory
September 13
Obsolescence and the Death of the book
Is the book really dying? Are academic monographs an obsolete form? Is print a thing of the past?
Required Readings
- Piper, Andrew. 2012. Prologue. In Book Was There: Reading in Electronic Times. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. vii-xiii. {Darren Lau, Nicholas Liscin-Wilson}
- Fitzpatrick, Kathleen. 2009. Introduction. In Planned Obsolescence: Publishing, Technology, and the Future of the Academy. Media Commons Press. {Margaret Lei}
- Price, Leah. Dead Again. New York Times 10 Aug 2012. {Jennifer Lee}
- Nunberg, Geoffrey. 1996. Introduction. In Geoffrey Nunberg, ed., The Future of the Book Berkeley: University of California Press. {Adrianna Mowatt}
Optional:
- Lloyd, Sara. 2008 A Book Publisher’s Manifesto for the 21st Century. The Digitalist (Pan MacMillan).
- Sayers, Jentery. 2016. Technology. Keywords for American Cultural Studies. NYU Press.
September 20
Old New Media
What evolutions have the book and print culture gone through in the recent past? What are the new media that we now think of as old, and how did they impact our current understanding of the book? How might a study of the past better equip us to navigate the future?
Readings
- Eichhorn, Kate. 2106. Open Secrets and Imagined Terrorisms. In Adjusted Margin: Xerography, Art, and Activism in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge: The MIT Press. 58-79. {Hannah Jorgeson}
- Gitelman, Lisa. 2013. Print Culture (Other Than Codex): Job Printing and Its Importance. In N. Katherine Hayles and Jessica Pressman, eds., Comparative Textual Media: Transforming the Humanities in the Postprint Era. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press. 183-197. {Josh Nicholas, Ryan Casciano}
- Menand, Louis. 2015, January 5. Pulp’s Big Moment. The New Yorker. {Maddison Yeo, Kelsey Kline}
- Portela, Manuel. 2016. ‘This strange process of typing on a glowing glass screen’: An Interview with Matthew Kirschenbaum. Materialities of Literature 4 (2). {Kelsey Wilson, Celine Diaz}
September 27
Mediations and Digital Media
What’s the difference between media and technology? If books themselves are media, what are their characteristics? How have those characteristics changed and stayed the same over time? How does digital media mediate differently? Can we talk about digital media as a radical rupture or media revolution, or part of a longer historical trajectory?
Readings
- Bolter, Jay David, and Richard Grusin. 1998. Immediacy, Hypermediacy, and Remediation. In Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge: The MIT Press. {Nick Bond, Mike Lazar}
- Kember, Sarah, and Joanna Zylinska. 2015. Mediation and the Vitality of Media. In Life after New Media: Mediation as a Vital Process. Cambridge: The MIT Press. 1-28. {Tyler Gallop, Kyung Min Jee}
- Piper, Andrew. 2012. “Take It and Read” & “Face, Book”. In Book Was There: Reading in Electronic Times. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1-44. {Katrina Abel, Olivia Gutjahr}
October 4
Authors & Readers
How have our understandings of authorship and reading changed in the context of the shifting media landscape (note that I didn’t say “been changed by“)?
- Fitzpatrick, Kathleen. 2009. Two: Authorship. In Planned Obsolescence: Publishing, Technology, and the Future of the Academy. Media Commons Press. {Eco Yuan, Alvi Chowdhury}
- Nakamura, Lisa. 2013. “Words with Friends”: Socially Networked Reading on Goodreads. PMLA 128 (1). 238-243. {Fiona Chiang, Stephanie Lee}
- Piper, Andrew. 2012. “Turning the Page” and “Of Note”. In Book Was There: Reading in Electronic Times. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 45-82. {Sean Sliman, Jessica Qu}
- Plate, S. Brent. 2015, December 16. Marginalia and Its Disruptions. LA Review of Books. {Volun Cheong}
Optional:
- PMLA Forum: Reading in the Digital Age
Part Two: Industry and Technology
October 11
Introduction to Digital Publishing
Did “everything” change when publishing and literature went digital? Did nothing change? How the heck can we even tell?
Readings
- Murray, Padmini Ray, and Claire Squires. 2013. The digital publishing communications circuit. Book 2.0 3 (1). 3-23. (also available at http://www.bookunbound.stir.ac.uk/research/infographic/)
- Osnos, Peter. 2011, April 12. How Book Publishing Has Changed Since 1984. The Atlantic.
- Doctorow, Cory. 2011, June 30. Publishers and the internet: a changing role? The Guardian.
- Shatzkin, Mike. 2015, June 11. The publishing business as we have known it is not going away anytime soon. The Shatzkin Files.
October 18
Current events in the publishing industry
We explore things making news in the book industry. You pick the stories. Find any news stories related to the content of this course from the last 6 months or so. Below are some places to get started, but you are not constrained by these.
Everyone should come having read several stories, but have chosen at least two to talk about in class.
SEND ONE OR TWO OF YOUR FAVOURITES BY OCT 16
Readings
List of student-produced links here!
- TeleRead: Bring the Ebooks Home blog
- O’Reilly Radar: Publishing News
- The Shatzkin Files
- Publishers Weekly
- Medium: Publishing
October 25
New Markets, New Models
What are examples of successful books or book-like things online? How do we define success? What can we learn from these examples?
Readings
- Colbjørnsen, Terje. 2014. The construction of a bestseller: theoretical and empirical approaches to the case of the Fifty Shades trilogy as an eBook bestseller. Media Culture & Society.
- Michel, Lincoln. 2016, June 30. Everything You Wanted to Know about Book Sales (But Were Afraid to Ask). Electric Lit.
- Hempel, Jessi. 2016, April 5. Medium Takes Aim at WordPress With a New Way to Power Websites. Wired.
- James Bridle. 2013. Hacking the Word. BookTwo.org
- McGuire, Hugh. 2013, February 1. A Publisher’s Job Is to Provide a Good API for Books. Tools of Change for Publishing.
- Lee, Pippin. 2015, July 10. Will the future of writing be more like software?Medium.
- Wood, Molly. 2015, August 6. Aiming to be the Netflix of Books. New York Times.
November 1
Copyright & DRM
What does copyright look like today, and why does it matter? How do we balance intellectual property and freedom? Do we want more control or more openness?
Readings
- Doctorow, Cory. 2014, February 5. What happens with digital rights management in the real world?The Guardian.
- Hern, Alex. 2016, May 23. Revealed: How copyright law is being misused to remove material from the internet. The Guardian.
- Ling, Justin. What the TPP means for copyright law in Canada. National Magazine.
- Piper, Andrew. 2012. “Sharing.” In Book Was There: Reading in Electronic Times. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 83-108.
Optional:
- The rest of Cory Doctorow’s Guardian column, Digital rights, digital wrongs
SHORT PAPER #2 DUE
Part Three: Case Studies
November 8
Case Studies in Digital Publishing
Readings
- Levey, Nick. 2016, February 3. Post-Press Literature: Self-Published Authors in the Literary Field. Post45.
- Maxwell, John W. 2013. EBook Logic: We Can Do Better. Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 51 (1).
- DiChristopher, Tom. 2016, June 5. Comic books buck trend as print and digital sales flourish. CNBC.
- Neyfakh, Leon. 2016, April 10. The Fight for the Future of NPR. Slate.
Optional:
- Miller, Laura. 2014, June 17. Amazon is not your best friend: Why self-published authors should side with Hachette. Salon.
- McCartney, Jennifer. 2016, June 24. One Direction Fan Fiction Reigns on Wattpad. Publishers Weekly.
- Perry, Jack W. 2013, November 3. With eBook Sales Flat, Is it Time to Experiment with New Models? Digital Book World.
- Shaw, Holly. 2015, July 15. E-book sales are flattening, but does that mean the technology is dying as consumers unplug? Financial Post.
- Milliot, Jim. 2016, June 17. As E-book Sales Decline, Digital Fatigue Grows. Publishers Weekly.
- Reid, Calvin. 2016, May 24. Comixology Launches Comics Subscription Service. Publishers Weekly.
- Weldon, Glen. 2010, January 20. How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Wait For The Trade Collection. NPR.
- Dalh, Melissa. 2016, August 10. As Far As Your Brain Is Concerned, Audiobooks Are Not ‘Cheating’. NYMag.
- Mrjoian, Aram. A Brief History of the Audiobook. Book Riot.
November 15
NO CLASS: Use this week to work on your final projects
November 22
Self-Publishing & E-Books
GROUP PRESENTATIONS PART ONE
November 29
Comics, Audiobooks & Podcasts
GROUP PRESENTATIONS PART TWO
Assessment
Head over to the assessment and assignment description page.