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CAT 125
I/EYEgasm
Mutations of the
Broadcasted Self
in the Chaotic Digital Age of Sex & Race
Dr. William
Anthony Nericcio
email:
nericcio@cornell.edu
phone:
619.594.1524
Office Hours:
Mondays & Wednesdays,
before class at
The Loft, 11:30am to 12:40pm
“I couldn't
decide whether I was writing the characters, or whether the characters were
writing me, or whether we were all one and the same.”
--David Bowie,
musing on the last night he
performed as
Ziggy Stardust with the Spiders from Mars
our UCSD course
catalogue refers to this class as “Public Rhetoric and Practical Communication”
and, indeed, we will, in the course of the Fall quarter, explore the spheres of
rhetoric, communication, and—brace for it—the joys of “writing a resume.” But
we will also be embarked on other, related perhaps more profound missions!
Together, we will
explore the following questions: What is “self” and what goes into its
manufacture? In order to answer those
questions (and to keep our adventure timely and of value for undergraduates
from across the disciplines) we will be grappling with contemporary debates
that impact on our construction and “branding” of our self in worlds analog and
digital. Other questions we will work
with this semester include: What is a memoir? What is a self-portrait? Why does
it feel so good to have our pictures liked by unseen entities, the digitized
shadows of others, connected to us by the bizarre electronic network that is
the internet? What is the relationship of our Facebook page to our Self? Are living through a paradigm shift?—a
watershed epoch where something as basic as the “I” is totally being rewritten
by our obsession with digitized eyes!
In our class I
will speak of hygiene’s cousin, “Eyegiene,” and of something I call “I/EYEgasm”—where
the addictive hedonizing pleasure of the visually digitized world evolves into
the virtual equivalent of crystal meth.
I/EYEgasm is a made-up word, a neologism, that attempts to speak to our
common experiences with mass media today—is it possible that the mesh of our
minds with technology, our daily ritural of touching/seeing screens (computer
screens, smartphone screens, television screens) comes to infect/dominate our
lives? Eyes wide open, so to speak, these screens become electric, naked mirrors,
concealing nothing, revealing all.
The various works
we encounter this term will teach us to rethink, rewrite, and reimagine what it
is we call to consciousness when we picture the contours of the human mind--in
the process, we will learn to tell stories of our selves, share representations
of ourselves that just might move someone else (and get you a job, career,
future!).
During the
semester we will hang out with a wide-ranging and eclectic group of characters
including Banksy, the epic #streetart maven cum moviemaker with Exit Through
the Gift Shop; Frida Kahlo, who basically rewrites the notion of the
self-portrait in oil painting and beyond; Nathanael West, American novelist and
arch satirist cynic whose Miss Lonelyhearts will singe your existential
synapses; and Dan Clowes, infamous graphic narrative guru whose Ghost World
redefines notions of being for a 21st century audience—also making cameos?
Marshall McLuhan, Siggy Freud, John Berger, and LA Playwright Oliver Mayer.
{Please note that
you must have the old school PRINT version of the books for our class as
electronic versions are to be avoided.}
Sections/Teaching
Assistants
CAT 125A
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Required Books:
1. The Medium is
the Massage 9th Edition by Marshall McLuhan
(Author), Quentin Fiore (Author), Shepard Fairey (Illustrator)
Publisher: Gingko
Press; 9th edition (August 1, 2001)
ISBN-10:
1584230703
ISBN-13:
978-1584230700
2. Freud for
Beginners Paperback –by Richard Appignanesi
(Author), Oscar Zarate
Publisher:
Pantheon (July 15, 2003)
ISBN-10:
037571460X
ISBN-13:
978-0375714603
3. Ways of
Seeing: Based on the BBC Television Series Paperback – by John Berger (Author)
Publisher:
Penguin Books; Reprint edition (December 1, 1990)
ISBN-10:
0140135154
ISBN-13:
978-0140135152
4. Kahlo–by
Andrea Kettenmann (Author)
Publisher:
Taschen (September 1, 2015)
ISBN-10:
383650085X
ISBN-13:
978-3836500852
5. Ghost World–
by Daniel Clowes (Author)
Publisher:
Fantagraphics (April 1, 2001)
ISBN-10:
1560974273
ISBN-13:
978-1560974277
6. Miss
Lonelyhearts Paperback –by Nathanael West (Author), Harold Bloom (Introduction)
Publisher: New
Directions; Reprint edition (July 17, 2013)
ISBN-10:
0811220931
ISBN-13:
978-0811220934
The Hurt Business:
Oliver Mayer's Early Works [+] PLUS Paperback –
by Oliver Mayer,
William Nericcio, Editor
Publisher:
Hyperbole Books, San Diego State University Press; 1st edition
ISBN-10:
1879691841
ISBN-13:
978-1879691841
