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Syllabus

Assignments
Active class participation is central to our work together. Attendance is mandatory, and students are expected to arrive in class on time and prepared to discuss common readings. A student who misses two or more class sessions will automatically fail the subject. At the beginning of most class sessions, students will hand in two-page papers that address issues from that week's readings; the questions will be distributed in advance. A ten-page paper will be due in class in week #8, and a five page paper due on the last day of classes, in week #14. I will hand out instructions for these assignments later in the semester. There will be no exams and no final. Each assignment will be weighted as follows in the calculation of the final grade, although these calculations will also take into account improved performance during the course of the semester:

      Class Participation: 40 points
      Homework (8 assignments): 40 points (5 points each)
      Ten-page Paper: 80 points
      Five-page Paper: 40 points
      TOTAL: 200 POINTS
Readings to Purchase
  • Ong, Walter. The Technologizing of the Word. New York: Routledge, 1988.
  • Eisenstein, Elizabeth. Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993.
  • Epstein, Jason. Book Business: Publishing: Past, Present, and Future. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2001.
  • Sunstein, Cass R. Republic.Com. Princeton Univ. Press, 2002.
  • Course Reader.