And we are off…

I am really excited about how my semester is looking this Fall. My courses are great, my professors are great, my own work is great. Life is just great. (I know, I know… check back in two weeks.)

Each semester I am always surprised at the way in which my courses appear to compliment each other, providing the semester with a broader theme. This semesters theme would unquestionably be the ways in which users and technology shape each other.

In Unpacking Science & Technology, taught by Dr. Ribes (a new professor at CCT whose blog has become noticeably quiet — I am convinced he doesn’t want us cyber-stalking him), I am going to Science and Technologies Studies (STS) boot camp. As Dr. Ribes said in his first lecture, we will be examining the relationship between “content” and “context” in everything from medical categories to the scientific method itself.

Dr. Dediac, our linguist, is teaching Netspeak, a linguistically focused course on computer mediated communication. Pivotal to this course is the examination of the ways in which language is changing due to technology, as well as the way in which technology changed to accommodate speech.

For example, did you know that linguists have a concept called the “turn allocation point”. In a conversation this is the point at which you stop speaking and your friend starts speaking. We all recognize this ebb and flow. We also all probably recognize how this goes right out the window when we are talking about IM.

The last course is an independent seminar entitled Technologies of Subjectivity. This course builds on my chapter on craigslist (which I turned in a week ago! w00t!) and should help prepare me for my thesis. I will be considering a number of texts from Computer Mediated Communication, STS, and Critical Theory to how both users (read: subjectivity) and digital environments (read: contexts) co-constitute each other. My adviser on this course is Garrison LeMasters, who as an expert on theoretical approaches to video games is a brilliant wealth of knowledge that I am lucky to be working with.

Then there is the grab-bag. I am TA-ing Dr. Turner’s Communication Theory and Frameworks course, in which, among other things, I will be guest lecturing on theories of Anonymity and Deindividuation (ala Walther). I will also be working for gnovis (more on that soon), and I have to start applying to PhD programs.

As I am rushing towards a thesis topic on forms of self-presentation and anonymity, I am thrilled for a semester that considers the various ways in which we can “be”, and the various places (conceptually and actually) we can perform that “be”ing.

In the meantime, you can all vote on where I should do my PhD. Thoughts anyone?