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Recommended Texts

Yes, this page needs updating -- I hope to get to it soon

(listed by title -- those bulleted are strongly recommended)

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City of Bits: Space, Place and the Infobahn (1995)

Book by William J. Mitchell, with comprehensive Surf Sites

"The Constitution in Cyberspace," March 26, 1991

Keynote address by Lawrence H. Tribe, at the CPSR's first conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy

Copyright's Highway: The Law and Lore of Copyright from Gutenberg to the Celestial

Jukebox (1994), book by Paul Goldstein

CyberSociety: Computer-Mediated Communication and Community (1995)

Anthology edited by Steven G. Jones -- one of the essays is by the Duke literature program's Ted Friedman, "Making Sense of Software: Computer Games and Interactive Textuality"

"Democracy, Technology, and the Arts," 1993

Book by Richard A. Lanham, chapter four of Electronic Word

"Epoch of Technology Begins without Thought or Worry," Nov. 29, 1995

Editorial in the Chronicle, by Robin Stein, a Trinity senior

"Ethical Web Agents," Oct. 17-20, 1994

Paper by David Eichman, presented at the Second International World Wide Web Conference, on intelligent software agents and some of the implications of their use on the Web, highly recommended because Eichman goes deep within the technology to explore an ethical dilemma specific to one application (forthcoming in a special issue of Computer Networks and ISDN Systems)

Ethics of the Internet, Nov. 18, 1995

Conference at UC Berkeley -- all of the topics are relevant to this class: "Free Expression, Copyright, and Democracy," by Steve Arbuss (see also You Own Your Own Web and his wonderful Hot List); "Surveillance and Censorship on the Internet," by Jim Warren; "How Access to the Internet Affects Children," by Cynthia Samuels; "Controlling Criminal Contamination of the Net," by Don Ingraham; "Authenticity, Ownership, and Commercialism of Digital Images," by Howard Besser; and "Universal Service: Social and Political Implications," by Karen Coyle (see also "Access: Not Just Wires," March 3, 1995, and "Ten Things You Can Do As a Cyber-Activist," Aug. 1994)

Gadget (1994)

CD-ROM game directed by Haruhiko Shono -- see "Gadget Trips," from the 1995 Arc Gallery

The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age (1994)

Book by Sven Bikerts

The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier (1992)

Book by Bruce Sterling

"The Heart of a New Machine," March 1983

Essay by Gregg Easterbrook, from the Washington Monthly, reprinted in Questioning Technology: Tool, Toy, or Tyrant? (1991), edited by John Zerzan and Alice Carnes

High Stakes in Cyberspace, Nov. 1995

Documentary on PBS's Frontline, with a range of online multimedia material

Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology (1992)

Book by George Landow -- see also Hypertext in Hypertext (1994, software) [reserve], and Hyper/Text/Theory (1994, anthology) [reserve]

The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at M.I.T. (1987)

Book by Stewart Brand -- see Brand's thumbnail reviews, collected into the GBN Book Club Selections

The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality (1993)

Book by Michael Heim -- see Mediamatic's interview with Heim, "Heidegger Online," by Geert Lovink, Nov. 2, 1993

"A Rape in Cyberspace," Dec. 23, 1993

Article by Julian Dibbell in the Village Voice -- see HotWired's interview with Dibbell, Feb. 22, 1995

Republic, Book VII (Allegory of the Cave, 360 B.C.)

Philosophical dialogue by Plato, trans. by Benjamin Jowett

Society of Spectacle (1967)

Book by Guy Debord, translated by Black and Red, 1970, rev. 1977

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (2nd ed., 1970)

Book by Thomas S. Kuhn

Superdistribution: Objects as Property on the Electronic Frontier (1995)

Book by Brad Cox -- see his Middle of Nowhere Warehouse

Technoculture (1991)

Anthology edited by Constance Penley and Andrew Ross -- see their Interview with Robin Moore

Technologies of Freedom: On Free Speech in an Electronic Age (1983)

Book by Ithiel de Sola Pool

Telecosm (forthcoming in 1997)

Book by George Gilder

The Third Wave (1980)

Book by Alvin Toffler -- see comments by Fuqua's John McCann, March 23, 1995; see also Peter Schwartz's interview with Toffler, "Shock Wave (Anti) Warrior," Wired, Nov. 1993

True Names (1980)

Science fiction novel by Vernor Vinge, with an afterward by Marvin Minsky

Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964)

Essays by Marshall McLuhan -- see the cover article of the Jan. 1996 Wired, "Channeling McLuhan," by Gary Wolf

Virtual Reality: A Communication Perspective, Fall 1992

Special issue of the Journal of Communication, edited by Frank Biocca (later collected into Communication in the Age of Virtual Reality, edited by Biocca and Mark R. Levy, 1995) -- see Biocca's interview with Jaron Lanier, "An Insider's View of the Future of Virtual Reality," and Jonathan Steuer's paper "Defining Virtual Reality: Dimensions Determining Telepresence" (see also Steuer's intriguing chart, Vividness and Interactivity)

"VR Will Transform Computers into Extensions of Our Whole Bodies," Sept. 1995

Article in Scientific American by Brenda Laurel, co-author of Computers as Theater (1991)

The Web Server Book: Tools and Techniques for Building Your Own Internet

Information Site (1995) -- Book with Linux software, by Jonathan Magid, Paul Jones, R. Douglas Matthews, and David McConville -- purchase if you choose Option B

"What Are We Doing On-Line?", Aug. 1995

Conversation between by Barlow, Kelly, Bikerts, and Mark Slouka, in Harper's Magazine -- see Matthew G. Kirschenbaum's response, "The Cult of Print," in Postmodern Culture, Sept. 1995

"Where Is the Digital Highway Really Heading?", March 1993

Article by Mitch Kapor, in Wired -- see also Kapor's "Software Design Manifesto," 1990, and his Review of Gates's The Road Ahead, from USA Today, Dec. 11, 1995

Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing (1991)

Book by Jay David Bolter -- see Landow's review of Writing Space, see also Storyspace: A Hypertext Tool for Writers and Readers

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Additional Suggestions
(for serious cybernaughts)

"Baudrillard in Cyberspace: Internet, Virtuality, and Postmodernity," 1995

Essay by Mark Nunes

American Technological Sublime (1994)

Book by David E. Nye

Marc Andreessen's interview with c|net's Richard Hart, Nov. 1995

See also "Why Bill Gates Wants to Be the Next Marc Andreessen," in the Dec. 1995 Wired

Casbah (current)

Of High Five and Tekton fame, David Siegel regularly posts his thoughts on graphic design on the Web, including "Balkanization of the Web" and "Severe Tire Damage: On the Information Superhighway," both late 1995

"Coming Apart at the Seams: Sex, Text, and the Virtual Body," 1995

Essay by Shannon McRae in Women Online: Gender and Social Reality in Cyberspace, edited by Lynn Cherny and Elizabeth Weise (forthcoming in 1996)

Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society (1991)

Anthology edited by David Crowley and Paul Heyer

"Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing and Sniping in the Empire of Signs"

Pamphlet by Mark Dery -- see his introduction to Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cyberculture, special issue of the South Atlantic Quarterly, Fall 1993, edited by Dery

Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Hyperspace (1994)

Book by Douglas Rushkoff

"Cyber-Seers: Through a Glass, Darkly," Nov. 1995

Article by G. Pascal Zachary in Upside in Print -- see the list of current dystopian titles at the bottom of Zachary's article

Definitive HTML Book List

Search engine and table created by Cye H. Waldman

Doom Patrols (1995)

Theoretical fiction by Steven Shaviro -- see his excellent Hotlist

Umberto Eco on PCs and Macs, Sept. 30, 1994

Eco's back page column of Espresso, "La bustina di Minerva"

Envisioning Information (1990)

Self-published book by Edward Tufte

"Ethics Issue Emerges As Computer Literacy Flourishes," Sept. 17, 1995

Technology update by Dick Wilson, on CNN

"Faded Genes," Feb. 1995

Article by Greg Blonder (published in abridged form as "The End of Homo Sapiens," Wired, March 1995)

"Getting Over the Edge," Fall 1995

Article by Stuart Moulthrop in Communication and Cyberspace: Social Interaction in an Electronic Environment (forthcoming in 1996)

Governance of Cyberspace, Day One and Day Two, April 12-13, 1995

Conference at the University of Teeside in the United Kingdom (Abstracts and Papers are available)

"Hypertext Publishing and the Evolution of Knowledge," 1987 (updated 1995)

Article by K. Eric Drexler

Law in a Digital World (1995)

Book by M. Ethan Katsh

Life on the Internet (current)

One of dozens of guides to the Internet, suggested because it's easy to access, read, and use, the information ties in with programs on The Discovery Channel, and the site's topics are relevant to this course

"Living Inside the (Operating) System: Community in Virtual Reality," June 29, 1995

Draft of an essay by John M. Unsworth, included in Computer Networking and Scholarship in the 21st-Century University, edited by Teresa Harrison and Timothy D. Stephen (forthcoming)

The Machine in America: A Social History of Technology (1995)

Book by Carroll W. Pursell

"Manifesto of the Futurist Programmers," June 15, 1991

Proclamation written by Paul Haeberli, Bruce Karsh, and other computer graphics programmers at Silicon Graphics, based on Boccioni's 1910 "Manifesto of the Futurist Painters" -- see their "Background on Futurist Programming," Feb. 3, 1994

"Metaphors We Compute By: Bringing Magic into Interface Design," 1995

Essay by Tim Rohrer

Microserfs (1995)

Novel by Douglas Coupland -- see "Microserfs," the Wired article that prompted the book, Jan. 1994

MOO / MU*Document Library (current)

Research papers and resources on MUDs and MOOs, collected by Jerome P. McDonough

Netizens: An Anthology, updated Oct. 21, 1995

Anthology in progress by Ronda Hauben and Michael Hauben

Out of Control: The Rise of Neo-Biological Civilization (1994)

Book by Kevin Kelly

"Policing Cyberspace," Jan. 23, 1995

Article by Vic Sussman, in U.S. News and World Report

"Redefining the Book," March 24, 1995

Presentation given by Fred Kemp

The Road Ahead (1995)

Book and CD-ROM by Bill Gates

Romance and the Internet, July 26, 1994

Special issue of The Arachnet Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture

Scholarly Writings about Usenet (current)

Collected by Michael Grubb

Science Fiction and Sci-Tech Journals and Zines (current)

From the Voice of the Shuttle, woven by Alan Liu

Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (1991)

Book by Donna Haraway -- see Donna Haraway and the Cyborg

"Snowballs in Cyberspace," Jan. 16, 1995

Article by Philip Elmer-DeWitt, in Time

"Social Construction of Rape in Virtual Reality," Aug. 24, 1995

Paper by Richard C. MacKinnon, to be included in Network and Netplay: Virtual Groups on the Internet, edited by Fay Sudweeks, Margaret McLaughlin, and Sheizaf Rafaeli (forthcoming)

Socrates in the Labyrinth: Hypertext, Argument, Philosophy (1995)

Anthology of hypertext essays by David Kolb

Synchronized: A Novel of the Internet Era (1995)

Serial fiction by William H. Calvin -- see his Cyberspeak Glossary

Techno and Cyber Books, Feb. 24, 1994

Brief reviews of cyberculture titles by the UC Irvine Bookstore

Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1992)

Book by Neil Postman

Webcraft (1995)

Online interactive book on Web design by Alan Eyzaguirre