Fourth Assignment

Choose one of the options below and write an essay in response. Your essay should be at least three and a half pages in length and should not exceed six pages. Use double-space lineation, a 12-point serif font, and one-inch margins on all sides. Your writing is expected to be error-free and up to university standards.

Essay should be argumentative essays: there should be one main thesis that the essay attempts to support/prove. The thesis represents your own original insight into the topic.

The assignment is due on March 19th. Consult the course outline for information about late assignments.

Option 1: Gaming

Write an analysis of a computer game. Note that you are analyzing the game from the perspective of humanistic enquiry (not from a psychological, marketing, computer/graphic design, or sociological perspective). You may follow the guidelines presented in class, and you are certainly free to deviate from these if you feel you can produce a better essay by doing so. A good strategy is to interpret the game: analyze the symbolic meanings behind the various features of the game. You may choose any computer game, though you should probably choose wisely. Unless I am very familiar with the game, you must include with your essay a one- to two-page appendix (that does not count towards the page count of the essay) that briefly summarizes the game: its goals, method of play, and anything else you think needs to be said as background. Keep separate from your essay an explanation of how to play the game and how it works: the essay itself must focus on an analysis of the game.

Option 2: Posthuman: Cyborgs

Examine the portrayal and use of the cyborg in one of the following:

• Blade Runner (1982)
• Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
• Battlestar Galactica (2003-09 television series); you are welcome to focus solely on the three-hour opening miniseries or an individual episode

For Blade Runner, you may consider the Nexus-6 models (the “skin-jobs”) as cyborgs; for Battlestar Galactica, you may consider the new-generation Cylons (the “skin-jobs”) as cyborgs. Your essay should carefully examine the way the cyborg bridges the divide between human and machine. What human characteristics are retained? What human characteristics are lost? What is the role of the cyborg within the new society imagined by the movie/show? What comment about humanity is the movie/show making through its use of cyborgs?

Option 3: Posthuman: Feed

Examine the depictions of humanity and digital technology in the novel. What is the novel saying about the fate of humanity in a world where digital technology has a greater influence than it currently does? How have the ways humans define who they are changed? You may talk about the ways the novel explores the boundaries between the human and the posthuman.

Option 4: Digital Pedagogy

Find two articles or essays about the use of technology in classrooms (at the primary, secondary, or tertiary/university level). The articles or essays should appear in respectable news magazines (such as Macleans, Time, and Newsweek) or in academic journals. Write an essay focussing on the rhetoric of the essays. What are the assumptions behind what is being said? How are the authors able to persuade us of their points? How is digital technology being treated and portrayed? The essays/articles can focus on negative or positive aspects of digital pedagogy, can focus on the use of tools for teaching, and can focus on the use of digital gadgets by students in a classroom or school setting.

Option 5: Copyright and open access

Research the public (as reported in the news “media”) and/or scholarly reaction to the court injunction against Napster (of 5 March 2001). To what extent is the reaction coming out in favour of or against open access to digital (copyrighted) files? How is the technology that enables open access (and copyright infringement) being treated? What attitudes are being taken with regards to the future of society?