Midterm

Choose two questions and respond to each, targeting 2-3 pages for each response and focusing on comparative analysis through specific, significant moments (passages, scenes, exchanges, sections, etc.) in the text. Please number your responses so I know to which questions you are responding. Your midterm should be in MLA format: 1-inch margins on all four sides, double-spaced, 12-point font. Your header and parenthetical citations should also be in MLA. The works cited page is not necessary. Print your midterm, staple it, and upload a digital file to the designated dropbox on D2L. Midterms are due at the beginning of class on October 15.

  1. James Gleick’s account of the telegraph and telephone illuminates (though doesn’t fully explain) the paranoia of the main characters in Andrew Altschul’s and Franz Kafka’s stories. Choose either Kafka or Altschul and analyze their fictional treatments alongside key points from Gleick’s historical narrative of how individuals react when faced with a new, at times intrusive presence—whether it be a communication device/network, a human, or some blend of both.
  2. According to Nicholas Carr and Ann Blair, the organization of thoughts and our habits of reading depend, to varying degrees, on the information technologies we use. Outline and contrast these authors’ most significant claims about the causes and effects of different media and information management techniques in terms of reading.
  3. Victor Hugo and Walter Benjamin both write about ancient modes of expression that are (in their eyes) dying as new, transformative modes, experiences, and worldviews emerge in society. Discuss what exactly is changing / has changed and what are the most notable gains and/or losses, according to the authors. In your discussion, pay attention to how the authors write and not just what they write.
  4. Walt Whitman and Gertrude Stein seek to catalog Americans or capture something of the nation as it existed at the time. Looking at content and/or form, how do their visions or purposes in writing an “essentially American book” (Stein 258) align or diverge?
  5. In E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops,” Kuno and Vashti have trouble communicating for most of the story. In a few ways, the characters’ incompatibility bears similarities to offline vs. online life. Both David Weinberger and Clay Shirky discuss two logics or structures that seem equally incompatible. Analyze the most important parts (themes, conversations, events, scenes, passages) of Forster’s story as they relate to the contemporary clash between different forms of knowing and/or socializing. For the contemporary view, work with either Shirky OR Weinberger.