Identity and the Internet
STS 065
Spring 1996
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Professor Sherry Turkle
Program in Science, Technology and Society
MIT Room E51-201C
253-4068/sturkle@media.mit.edu
assistant: TBA

Books to buy (or get from library) --

Neal Stephenson, Snowcrash (New York: Bantam Books, 1992).
or William Gibson, Neuromancer
Howard Reingold, The Virtual Community (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publications, 1993).
Sherry Turkle Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet
All other reading are in a readings packet available for purchase at Graphic Arts.

February 6. Introduction and Overview February 13. Online Personae

Reading:

• Sherry Turkle, Life on the Screen, Introduction and Chapters 7-10.

February 20. No Class (Monday Schedule)

Reading:

• Sherry Turkle, Life on the Screen, Chapters 1-4

February 27. "Classical" Identities in a Brave New World

Reading:

• Erik Erikson, "Eight Ages of Man", from Childhood and Society (New York, Norton, 1950).

  "Rosanne Allacuquere Stone", "Will the Real Body Please Stand Up: Boundary Stories About Virtual Cultures", from Cyberspace: First Steps, Michael Benedikt (ed.) (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991).

  Julian Dibnell, "A Rape in Cyberspace,"Village Voice (December 21, 1993). and "Assault by Paragraph," Time, January 17, 1994.

March 5. Revising the Notion of Self -1

Reading:

• Kenneth J. Gergen, The Saturated Self (New York: Basic Books, 1991), "Social Saturation and the Populated Self" and "From Self to Relationship".

March 12. Revising the Notion of Self -2

Reading:

• James M. Glass, Shattered Selves., Chapter 1

  Rosanne Allequere Stone, "Violation and Virtuality", unpublished manuscript.

  Lindsy Van Gelder, "The Strange Case of the Electronic Lover"

  Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto" from Simians, Cyborgs and Women (New York: Routledge, 1991).

   

March 19. Multi-User-Domains

Reading:

• Amy Bruckman, "Identity Workshop"

  Elizabeth Reid, "Virtual Worlds: Culture and Imagination" from Cybersociety: Computer-Mediated Communication and Community , Steven Jones (ed.) (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1995).

  Chip Morningstar and F. Randall Farmer, "The Lessons of Lucasfilm's Habitat" from Cyberspace: First Steps, Michael Benedikt (ed.) (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991).

   

March 26. Spring Break April 2. No Class Meeting (makeup class held on May 7)

Reading:

• Howard Reingold, The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Fronteir (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publications, 1993).
  (read it now; not on May 7)

   

April 9. Interlude: What is a Person?

Reading:

• Amelie Oksenberg Rorty, from The Identities of Persons, "Introduction" and "A Literary Postscript"

  Sydney Shoemaker, "Embodiment and Behavior"

  Daniel Dennett, "Conditions of Personhood"

   

April 16. Patriots Day Vacation

Reading:

• Ray Oldenburg, The Great Good Place (New York: Paragon House, 1989), Chapters 1-3

   

April 23. Internet Relay Chat

Reading:

• Elizabeth M. Reid, "Electropolis: Communication and Community on Internet Relay Chat"

  Brenda Damet, "'Smoking Dope' at a Virtual Party: Writing, Play and Performance on Internet Relay Chat" from Network and Netplay: Virtual Groups on the Internet" , Sheizaf Rafaeli, et.al. (eds.) (Cambridge: MIT Press, in press).

   

April 30. Postmodern Identity

Reading:

• Chip Morningstar, "How to Deconstruct Almost Anything, My Postmodern Adventure",

  Claudia Springer, "The Pleasure of the Interface"

  Douglas Kellner, "Popular Culture and the Construction of Postmodern Identities"

   

May 7. The Culture of Simulation

Reading:

• Frederic Jameson, "Postmodernism or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism"

  Jean Baudrillard, from Simulations , "The Procession of Simulacra"

  Mark Poster, from The Mode of Information, "Derrida and Electronic Writing"

  Scott Bukatman, from Terminal Identity, "Terminal Penetration"

   

May 7. The Internet and the Imaginary
(special 7:30 pm makeup class)

Screening of The Net
Reading:

• William Gibson, Neuromancer or Neal Stephenson, Snowcrash

  Michael Heim, "The Erotic Ontology of Cyberspace"

  David Porush, "Hacking the Brainstem: Postmodern Metaphysics and Stephenson’s Snowcrash "

   

May 14. Contested Terrain

Reading:

• Nicholas Negroponte, from Being Digital, "Introduction," Chapters 17, 18

  Clifford Stoll, from Silicon Snake Oil, "Introduction," Chapters 1- 2

  Susan Sontag, from On Photography, "In Plato's Cave"

  Michelle Kendrick, "Cyberspace and the Technological Real"

  Terri Palmer, "Under, Over, and Around the Net: Interrupting the Utopian Subject of the Internet"