English 25: Literature and the Information, Media, and Communication Revolutions
Quarter: Spring 2025
Class Meeting Time: MWF, 2:00-2:50pm
Location: Interactive Learning Pavilion 2302
Instructor: Alan Liu | Office Hours: Mon. 3-4 pm (location: SH 2521)

Sections
Teaching Assistants
- Ripley (“Baker”) Baker,
Office Hours: T 11am-1pm, South Hall 2509 - Henry Coburn,
Office Hours: W 11am-1pm, South Hall 2509 - Nefeli Manoudaki,
Office Hours: W 12:50-1:50 pm, Elings Hall 2615 (or over Zoom)
Sections
| Enroll Code | TA | Meeting Time | Location |
| 51581 | Nefeli Manoudaki | M 3 – 3:50 | GIRV 2127 |
| 51599 | Nefeli Manoudaki | M 4 – 4:50 | HSSB 2251 |
| 51607 | Ripley Baker | T 8 – 8:50 | GIRV 2127 |
| 51615 | Ripley Baker | T 9 – 9:50 | GIRV 2129 |
| 51623 | Henry Coburn | T 4 – 4:50 | GIRV 2119 |
| 51631 | Henry Coburn | T 5 – 5:50 | GIRV 2127 |
Highlights of the Course
(see Schedule & Assignments for more information)
Course content units:
- Literature Across Media Ages
- The Communication/Information Age — Information’s impact on what we mean by “meaning”
- The Postindustrial & Neoliberal Age — Information’s impact on work and power
- Processing Literature — Information’s impact on the way we study literature
Key readings:
- Novelists: Thomas Pynchon (The Crying of Lot 49), William Gibson (Neuromancer)
- Media theorists: Marshall McLuhan, Walter Ong, N. Katherine, Lev Manovitch, etc.
- Historians and theorists of communication/computing: Claude Shannon, Warren Weaver, Vannevar Bush, etc.
- Business historians & theorists on the information age: Joseph Schumpeter, Shoshana Zuboff, Peter Senge, Manuel Castells, etc.
- Critics, cyberlibertarians, and hackers of the information age: John Perry Barlow, Critical Art Ensemble, Donna Haraway, Jodi, etc.
- Theorists and practitioners of the new “digital humanities”: Franco Moretti, The Stanford Literary lab, Ted Underwood, etc.
- Theorists of digital “deformance” and “glitch”: Lisa Samuels, Jerome McGann, Mark Sample, Rosa Menkman, etc.
Key assignments:
- Short essay in which you imagine what computing will be like in the year 2050.
- Short essay on Thomas Pynchon’s novel.
- Short essay on Being Human in the Digital Age
- Also, required ungraded assignments:
- Spreadsheet & Short Essay: spreadsheet comparing work life of a student and your imagined life in your desired future career, accompanied by short essay on “Being Human in the Age of Information Knowledge Work”
- Text-analysis exercise on a work of literature accompanied by short commentary.
Exams: (mostly “factual” in nature)
- Mid-term exam
- Final exam


