DUE: Friday, 12/14 by 4:00 p.m. in your section leader’s mailbox at the MCM Dept.

ANSWER ONE OF THE FOLLOWING. SEE THE INSTRUCTIONS ON ATTACHED SHEET OR ON THE WEBSITE.

In "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," Walter Benjamin writes: "The authenticity of a thing is the essence of all that is transmittable from its beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced" (221). Then, a few pages later, he states: "The instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice -- politics" (226). What does Benjamin mean by "authenticity" in relation to the work of art and the process of mechanical reproduction? How does "authenticity" relate to his distinction between "ritual" and "political" practices in terms of the way people produce and experience cultural texts? Be sure to use your own examples when answering this question.

In “Simulacra and Simulations,” Jean Baudrillard writes

Abstraction today is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal. The territory no longer precedes the map, nor survives it. Henceforth, it is the map that precedes the territory—precession of simulacra—it is the map that engenders the territory and if we were to revive the fable today, it would be the territory whose shreds are slowly rotting across the map (166).

Explain how Baudrillard’s idea of the precession of the simulacrum relates to the postmodern situation. In your analysis, be sure to pay close attention to the notions of “referentiality” and “hyperreal.” Do you think the world of hyperreality that Baudrillard describes opens up room for playing signs against each other, thus giving way to more creativity? Do you have a more negative vision of this world (everything is equalized)? Or, can you imagine another possibility outside of this binary? Please defend your answer by referencing Baudrillard’s essay.

Throughout the semester, we have discussed the form of classical realist cinema and the particular spectatorial relations yielded by this form. Yet given the differences between television and cinema, how would you characterize television’s form and the viewing dynamics that it creates? For example, how does television’s illusion of “liveness” compare to classical film’s illusion of “realism”? What distinct forms of narration and modes of address are involved with television, and how do these position the TV viewer (differently than the film viewer is typically positioned)? Finally, how do you assess these differences? Do you have a similar assessment of the ideological and/or consumer implications of film and television viewing, or do you think that they give rise to significantly different effects? In answering this question, be sure to refer specifically both to one or more of the essays we read on television and to one or more television examples from your own viewing.

In her description of television practices, Mimi White writes:

In the continuous flow of disruptive heterogeneity, multiple terms of unity and binding are not simply implicitly, but are explicitly asserted. The diegetic effectivity lost at the level of the program subsumes the medium as a whole as the world on television becomes progressively all-encompassing, self-defining, and continuous (62).

In contrast, Ien Ang provides a description of television that seems to emphasize self-differentiation rather than self-enclosure:

From transnational 24-hour satellite channels (e.g. CNN and MTV) to a myriad of local or regional cable channels dishing up unmanageable volumes of specialized programming, from video recorders and remote control devices (which have encouraged ‘zipping’ and ‘zapping’) to TVs watched in ‘uncommon’ places (laundries, campsites, airports, and so on), and above all, the very ubiquitousness of television which makes it bleed into every corner of day-today social life—all this can surely only make for an endless, unruly and uncontrollable play of differences in social practices related to television viewing: continuous social differentiation bordering on chaos (174).

How, if at all, can we reconcile these two assessments of television (and particularly of the phenomenon of television flow that they both emphasize)? That is, what is the relationship between homogeneity and heterogeneity, unification and difference, continuity and discontinuity, wholeness and fragmentation, totalization and disruption in television’s particular textual form? Are White’s and Ang’s descriptions and analyses simply opposed, or do the different features of television that they stress actually work together? What are the implications of this for understanding television (or for understanding our media-saturated world as a whole)?

Both the movie eXistenZ and "A Cyborg Manifesto" by Donna Haraway present a world where the boundaries between machines and humans have broken down. The machine/human coupling presented in both texts also put other binaries into question, such as work/play, male/female, organic/inorganic, reality/game, animate/inanimate, active/passive, individual/collective, identity/difference, serious/ironic, etc. Focusing on one or two of these binary oppositions (or related ones), compare the political implications of the machine/human coupling in both texts. How does each text support or subvert the claims of the other? What are the possibilities for resistance or control offered by machines in either text? What are the advantages or pitfalls associated with machine/human coupling?

For both Lev Manovich and Saskia Sassen, the way we think about "virtual space" has ideological and cultural implications. Using specific examples from either article, consider one of the following sets of questions:

A. How does Manovich figure the subject's relationship to "virtual space" in The Language of New Media? For example, what ideological and social implications do Manovich's descriptions of "the flaneur" and "the explorer" have for the way we think about virtual space? How do the metaphors of "navigation" and "homesteading" function ideologically? How are centrality and disjunction in the virtual world figured according to Manovich? What's at stake in thinking about digital space in these ways?

B. In "Electronic Space and Power," Sassen writes:

Whether in the geography of its infrastructure or in the structure of cyberspace itself, electronic space is inscribed, and to some extent shaped, by power, concentration, and contestation, as well as by openness and centralization (177).

How does Sassen figure space in relation to power in "Electronic Space and Power"? What's at stake politically in her formulation of structures of "centrality" and "marginality"? What does she mean by "cyber-segmentation"?

Both Rey Chow and Donna Haraway stress the importance of myth to theory and politics. Rey Chow describes the dilemma of poststructuralist theory as the following:

[O]n the one hand, it is attempting to speak truthfully in resistance to various types of “ideological aberrations” (including in particular the one that reduces language to a transparent communication tool); on the other hand, it is compelled to recognize at every turn the invincibility and ubiquity of the forces of mythic manipulation (13).

Donna Haraway describes her project as "an effort to build an ironic political myth faithful to feminism, socialism, and materialism" (149). Haraway also argues that:

One important route for reconstructing socialist-feminist politics is through theory and practice addressed to the social relations of science and technology, including crucially the systems of myth and meanings structuring our imaginations. The cyborg is a kind of disassembled and reassembled, postmodern collective and personal self. This is the self feminists must code (164).

In your paper, discuss what you consider to be the most important differences and similarities between Chow's and Haraway's argument about theory and myth. Make sure you address what is at stake in their uses of myth.

FORMAT FOR ALL PAPERS: All the papers in this class are required to keep to a rigid, arbitrary format: one side on one sheet of 8 1/2 by 11" paper, single-spaced, minimum font 10. On the back of the page write your name, your section leader's name, your section day/time. Also write the number of the question you are answering. However, do not put any part of your paper there.

GRADING: All papers will be graded on a scale of 0-12. A routinely satisfactory performance will be evaluated as 7. If you receive less than 6 on any paper, you should meet with your section leader at once about your performance.

LATE POLICY FOR ALL PAPERS IN THIS CLASS: Half a point will be deducted for each day the paper is late without excuse. If you know you in advance are going to blow a deadline, talk to your section leader before the due date.

REMARKS ON ASSIGNMENTS: The purpose of these papers is to allow you to demonstrate your control over concepts, theoretical frameworks, and arguments studied in this class. Your task is to say as much as you can as clearly and coherently as you can, about your topic. But you have little space, so use it wisely. No introduction or repetition of the question is necessary (you must indicate the question number you are answering on the back of the page). When discussing a theorist, concentrate on the key concepts and arguments most pertinent to the question you are answering. Discuss their implications insofar as they are pertinent to that question. For example, it may be (or it may not be) that your analysis requires references to other concepts of the theorist than those central to your argument or mentioned in the question; however, make such references as brief as you can while maintaining clarity. But be as specific as possible in your references to texts.