Details about weekly topics and readings can be found in the dropdown links or the menu to the right. Below is an overview of the schedule.
Schedule
Week 1: Internets That Weren’t
Aug 29 Lecture: England’s Victorian Internet, France’s Minitel, and the Soviet Internyet Discussion: How did you use the Internet today?
Week 2: ARPANET
Sept 5 NO CLASS, Labor Day
Sept 9 Assignment 1—Consumption: Your Futurist Internet
Sept 12 Reading: Driscoll, 1–28; Licklider and Taylor, “The Computer as a Communication Device” Lecture: The Culture of and around ARPANET, or How No Technology Is Neutral
Discussion: Visions of the future internet
Week 3: Bulletin Board Systems
Sept 19 Reading: Driscoll, 29–89
Lecture: Afronet and the Digital Divide
Discussion: Minitel vs. BBSs
Sept 23 Assignment 2—Production: Bulletin Board Systems
Week 4: Hacking
Sept 26 Reading: Driscoll, 90–131; “NSA Files: Decoded,” Guardian, November 1, 2013,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/nov/01/snowden-nsa-files-surveillance-revelations-decoded
Lecture: Open Networks and the Walled Gardens
Discussion: Multimedia journalism as example for final project
Sept 30 Final project topic
Week 5: World Wide Web
Oct 3 Reading: Noble, 1–63
Lecture: Hypermedia and the World Wide Web
Discussion: Minitel vs. WWW, Wikiracing
Oct 7 Assignment 3—Regulation: Walled Gardens
Week 6: Navigation
Oct 10 Reading: Noble, 64–133
Lecture: Browsers, Portals, Search
Discussion: Micropayments vs. Advertising
Week 7: Social Media
Oct 17 Reading: Driscoll, 132–200
Lecture: Friends, Feeds, and the Hidden Work of Content Moderation
Discussion: Algorithmic feeds
Oct 21 Assignment 4—Representation: Search Engine Analysis
Week 8: Web Hosting
Oct 24 Reading: Reynolds and Hallinan, “Haunting of GeoCities”
Lecture: Personal Creation on the Web from GeoCities to WordPress
Week 9: Streaming
Oct 31 Reading: Noble, 134–182
Lecture: From Jennycam to Zoom
Nov 4 Assignment 5—Identity: Archaeology of a GeoCities Site
Week 10: Peer-to-Peer Networks
Nov 7 Reading: Walmsley, “Brandenburg’s Dream”; Cohen, “Incentives Build Robustness in Bittorrent”
Lecture: A History of File Sharing: Music and Piracy
Nov 11 Final project annotated bibliography
Week 11: Blockchain
Nov 14 Reading: Nakamoto, “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,” https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf; Iansiti and Lakhani, “The Truth about Blockchain,” https://hbr.org/2017/01/the-truth-about-blockchain Lecture: Peer-to-Peer Networks, from Pirated Music to Blockchain Discussion: Forensics of a blockchain heist
Nov 21 NO CLASS, FALL RECESS
Week 12: Final Presentations
Nov 28 Final presentations
Week 13: Final Presentations
Dec 5 Final presentations
Dec 7 Final webpage due
Cultural History of the Internet 