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Description:
 The
English Department encourages upper-division students with particular
literary/critical interests to pursue them formally by selecting
one of the new specializations in the major. The specialization
in Literature and the Culture of Information brings the perspective
of the humanities to the concept of "information" that many students
will engage with professionally and personally all their lives.
In particular, Literature and the Culture of Information
compares the forms, media, institutions, and aesthetics of the "information
revolution" to similar revolutions in the past–e.g., the print revolution.
The goal is to ask what the "well-read" have to offer the "well-informed,"
and vice versa. What was beautiful, enlightening, or cruel in the
project of orality or literacy and their literatures? How does the
project of information compare? And how might the insights of past
ages of language be used to improve our contemporary age? Courses
offered by the specialization in Literature and the Culture of
Information hybridize the theory, practice, and literature of
contemporary information culture with studies of the earlier information
media of oral discourse, manuscripts, and print and the literature
they embodied.
Faculty: 
Alan
Liu (Director)
Christopher
Newfield
Rita
Raley
Carol
Pasternack
William
Warner
Requirements:
Any 4 elective courses in the "Literature and the Culture of
Information" specialization. Students in the specialization will also
be invited to participate in one or more such events each year as
a conference, discussion with a faculty member or visiting scholar,
or field trip to an organization related to information culture. (Students
should sign up for the specialization with Susan Gosling; see above.)
Signing Up for the Specialization:
To sign up for the specialization or for information about
course requirements, etc., contact Susan Gosling, English Department
Staff Undergraduate Advisor (gosling@english.ucsb.edu;
893-8711). For other information about the specialization, contact
its director, Prof. Alan Liu (ayliu@english.ucsb.edu).
Courses for
2001-2002:
Courses
Planned for 2002-2003: 
| Fall |
- English 165LT Hypertext Fiction and Poetry (Instructor:
Rita Raley)
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| Winter |
- English 25 The Culture of Information (Instructor:
Alan Liu)
- English 122FS Free Speech and Censorship: Anglo-American
Networks from Print to the Internet (Instructor: Bill Warner)
- English 165MC Media Culture (Instructor: William
Warner)
- English 197 Business Culture (Instructor: Christopher
Newfield)
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| Spring |
- English 165EC Electronic Art, Literature, and Culture
(Instructor: Rita Raley)
- English 197 Global Literary Studies (instructor:
Rita Raley) [tentative]
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Future Plans
for the Specialization:
(see
prospectus)
New "Culture
of Information" Web Site (CI-Web) Under Development:
(see
CI-Web development)
 The
Transcriptions Project:
The emphasis in Literature and the Culture of Information grows
out of the English Department's curricular development project titled
"Transcriptions: Literary History and the Culture of Information."
The project, which began development in 1998 and offered its first
courses in 1999, was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities,
UCSB, and private donors. For more information about Transcriptions
and its past courses, see http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu
Other Specializations
in the English Major:
Currently, the UCSB English Dept.has started one other specialization
in the major: Early
Modern Studies. Other specializations are being planned.
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