SAMPLE SYLLABUS – This syllabus is provided as a sample. Course content may vary.
DEPARTMENT OF MEDIA, CULTURE, AND COMMUNICATION
MCC-UE1036
On the Phone: Telephone and Mobile Communication Technology
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course examines the convergence of different technologies and cultures in telephony since the
nineteenth century. It surveys the technical development of the telephone, from its roots in
telegraphy to radio and portable phones to mobile computing. We will trace the history of
“telephonic principles” such as interaction and universality, and telephony in various social
contexts: national and transnational telephone cultures; genres of text messaging; the relationship
of communication technology to public, private, and virtual space; and the appropriation of the
medium for the purposes of art and activism.
LEARNER OBJECTIVES
At the end of this class students will be able to:





Outline the history of telephone technologies
Situate key principles of telephony in relation to historical and social contexts
Compare contemporary telephone practices to engagements with the telephone over
history
Analyze the relationship of telephone communication to concepts of public, private, and
virtual space
Conceptualize the telephone as a medium for communication, art, and activism
REQUIRED TEXTS
James E. Katz, ed. Handbook of Mobile Communication Studies (MIT Press, 2008).
Manuel Castells, Mireia Fernández-Ardèvol, Jack Qiu, Araba Sey. Mobile Communication and
Society: A Global Perspective (MIT Press, 2007).
Gerard Goggin. Cell Phone Culture: Mobile Technology in Everyday Life (Routledge, 2006).
Nicholson Baker, Vox (New York: Vintage, 1993).
*Other Course Readings Will Be Available Through Blackboard*
ASSIGNMENTS AND EVALUATION (FULL ASSIGNMENTS AT END OF SYLLABUS)
Attendance and Participation
10%
Historical Periodical Assignment (4-5 pp.)
Due Week 5
20%
1
SAMPLE SYLLABUS – This syllabus is provided as a sample. Course content may vary.
Telephone Activity and Technology Review
Due Week 8
20%
Mobile Activity and Short Essay (5 pp.)
Due Week 12
20%
Final Paper (8-10 pp.)
30%
2
SAMPLE SYLLABUS – This syllabus is provided as a sample. Course content may vary.
A Note on Participation:
Your participation grade is based on attendance, discussion, and readiness (bringing
readings/notes to class). During the first half of the term, no laptops or phones will be allowed in
seminar. As of October 28, you may bring these items; we will use them as instructional tools
and aids to discussion. On the last day of class, we will spend some time comparing these two
approaches to the classroom and pedagogy.
Evaluation Rubric
A= Excellent
This work is comprehensive and detailed, integrating themes and concepts from discussions,
lectures and readings. Writing is clear, analytical and organized. Arguments offer specific
examples and concisely evaluate evidence. Students who earn this grade are prepared for class,
synthesize course materials and contribute insightfully.
B=Good
This work is complete and accurate, offering insights at general level of understanding. Writing
is clear, uses examples properly and tends toward broad analysis. Classroom participation is
consistent and thoughtful.
C=Average
This work is correct but is largely descriptive, lacking analysis. Writing is vague and at times
tangential. Arguments are unorganized, without specific examples or analysis. Classroom
participation is inarticulate.
D= Unsatisfactory
This work is incomplete, and evidences little understanding of the readings or discussions.
Arguments demonstrate inattention to detail, misunderstand course material and overlook
significant themes. Classroom participation is spotty, unprepared and off topic.
F=Failed
This grade indicates a failure to participate and/or incomplete assignments
A = 94-100
A- = 90-93
B+ = 87-89
B = 84-86
B- = 80-83
C+ = 77-79
C = 74-76
C- = 70-73
D+ = 65-69
D = 60-64
F = 0-59
3
SAMPLE SYLLABUS – This syllabus is provided as a sample. Course content may vary.
COURSE POLICIES
Absences and Lateness
More than two unexcused absences will automatically result in a lower grade. Chronic lateness
will also be reflected in your evaluation of participation. Regardless of the reason for your
absence you will be responsible for any missed work. Travel arrangements do not constitute a
valid excuse for rescheduling exams. There are no extra credit assignments for this class.
Format
Please type and double-space your written work. Typing improves the clarity and readability of
your work and double-spacing allows room for me to comment. Please also number and staple
multiple pages. You are free to use your preferred citation style. Please use it consistently
throughout your writing. If sending a document electronically, please name the file in the
following format Yourlastname Coursenumber Assignment1.doc
Grade Appeals
Please allow two days to pass before you submit a grade appeal. This gives you time to reflect
on my assessment. If you still want to appeal your grade, please submit a short but considered
paragraph detailing your concerns. Based on this paragraph I will review the question and either
augment your grade or refine my explanation for the lost points.
General Decorum
Slipping in late or leaving early, sleeping, text messaging, surfing the Internet, doing homework
in class, eating, etc. are distracting and disrespectful to all participants in the course.
Academic Dishonesty and Plagiarism
The relationship between students and faculty is the keystone of the educational experience at
New York University in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.
This relationship takes an honor code for granted and mutual trust, respect, and responsibility as
foundational requirements. Thus, how you learn is as important as what you learn. A university
education aims not only to produce high-quality scholars, but to also cultivate honorable citizens.
Academic integrity is the guiding principle for all that you do, from taking exams to making oral
presentations to writing term papers. It requires that you recognize and acknowledge information
derived from others and take credit only for ideas and work that are yours.
You violate the principle of academic integrity when you
• cheat on an exam,
• submit the same work for two different courses without prior permission from your professors,
• receive help on a takehome examination that calls for independent work, or
• plagiarize.
Plagiarism, one of the gravest forms of academic dishonesty in university life, whether intended
or not, is academic fraud. In a community of scholars, whose members are teaching, learning,
and discovering knowledge, plagiarism cannot be tolerated.
4
SAMPLE SYLLABUS – This syllabus is provided as a sample. Course content may vary.
Plagiarism is failure to properly assign authorship to a paper, a document, an oral presentation, a
musical score, and/or other materials that are not your original work. You plagiarize when,
without proper attribution, you do any of the following:
• copy verbatim from a book, an article, or other media;
• download documents from the Internet;
• purchase documents;
• report from other’s oral work;
• paraphrase or restate someone else’s facts, analysis, and/or conclusions; or
• copy directly from a classmate or allow a classmate to copy from you.
The Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development imposes heavy penalties
for plagiarism in order to safeguard the degrees that the University grants. Cases of plagiarism
are considered among the most serious of offenses.
STUDENT RESOURCES

Students with physical or learning disabilities are required to register with the Moses
Center for Students with Disabilities, 719 Broadway, 2nd Floor, (212-998-4980) and are
required to present a letter from the Center to the instructor at the start of the semester in
order to be considered for appropriate accommodation.

Writing Center: 269 Mercer Street, Room 233. Schedule an appointment online at
www.rich15.com/nyu/ or just walk-in.
5
SAMPLE SYLLABUS – This syllabus is provided as a sample. Course content may vary.
COURSE OUTLINE
Week One
Course Introduction: What is a “Medium”?
Week Two
Communication, Orality and Secondary Orality
Reading:
John Durham Peters, “Introduction: The Problem of Communication,” Speaking into the Air: A
History of the Idea of Communication (University of Chicago Press), 1-31.
Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy (London and New York: Routledge, 1988), excerpt.
Robert Hopper, “The Rediscovery of Speaking,” in: Telephone Conversation (Indiana UP,
1992), 24-43.
Week Three Telegraphy and Wireless
Screening: The Lonedale Operator (D.W. Griffith, 1911)
Reading:
Laura Otis, “The Language of the Wires,” in Networking: Communicating with Bodies and
Machines in the Nineteenth Century (University of Michigan, 2001), 120-146.
In Lightning Flashes and Electrical Dashes (download from Google Books)
L.A. Churchill, “Playing with Fire,” pp. 69-71.
Charles Barnard, “Kate: An Electro-Mechanical Romance,” pp. 53-61.
JM Maclachlan, “A Perilous Christmas Courtship, or, Dangerous Telegraphy,” pp. 65-8.
Dwayne Winseck and Robert Pike, “Introduction: Deep Globalization and the Global Media in
the Late Nineteenth Century and Early Twentieth,” Communication and Empire. Duke UP, 2007.
pp. 1-15.
Daniel Czitrom, Ch. 1 and “The Ethereal Hearth: American Radio from Wireless through
Broadcasting, 1892-1940,” Media and the American Mind (Chapel Hill, UNC Press, 1982): 6072.
Rudyard Kipling, “Wireless,” Scribner’s (August 1902)
http://www.benlo.com/ham/wireless.html
6
SAMPLE SYLLABUS – This syllabus is provided as a sample. Course content may vary.
Week Four Telephone: Cultural History
Reading:
Michèle Martin, “Hello, Central?” Gender, Technology, and Culture in the Formation of
Telephone Systems. McGill-Queen’s UP, 1991. Selection.
Carolyn Marvin, “Annihilating Space, Time, and Difference: Experiments in Cultural
Homogenization,” When Old Technologies Were New: Thinking About Electric Communication
in the Late Nineteenth Century (Oxford UP, 1988), Selection.
Franz Kafka, “My Neighbor,” in The Complete Stories, ed. Glatzer, pp. 424-5.
David Morton, “The Message on the Answering Machine: Recording and Interpersonal
Communication,” Off the Record (New Brunswick: Rutgers UP).
Tom Levin, “Before the Beep: A Short History of Voice Mail” (1995)
http://www.sysx.org/soundsite/csa/eis2content/essays/p59_beep.html
Look at Motorola history, especially sections on Pagers and 2-way radios:
http://www.motorola.com/staticfiles/Business/Corporate/US-EN/history/timeline.html
Week Five Telephone Fiction
*Historical Periodical Assignment Due*
Reading:
Nicholson Baker, Vox
Ellis Hanson, “The Telephone and its Queerness,” in Cruising the Performative (Indiana UP,
1995), 34-58.
Week Six Phone Art & Phone Phreaks
Reading:
Peter Lunenfeld, “In Search of the Telephone Opera: From Communications to Art,” Afterimage
25 (August 1997): 8-10.
Robert Whitman, Children and Communication (1971)
http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/children-and-communication/
Scanner, The Human Voice (1998)
http://www.ubu.com/sound/scanner.html
Monologue by Jean Cocteau
Art by Telephone (1969)
http://www.ubu.com/sound/art_by_telephone.html
The Apology Line (Allan Bridge, 1980)
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1053
7
SAMPLE SYLLABUS – This syllabus is provided as a sample. Course content may vary.
Listen to segment 29:14 – 39:10
Phoney-vents (1973-7)
http://www.jpallas.com/phone/sent/phoneyventsent.htm
Elizabeth McCracken, “Dial-Tone Phreak,” New York Times (December 30, 2007).
Phone phreaking stories: http://webcrunchers.com/crunch/stories/
Joybubbles, Stories and Stuff (listen to any 2):
http://audio.textfiles.com/shows/storiesandstuff/
The Answering Machine Solution, excerpts TBA
Week Seven Telephonic Film
Screening: Sorry, Wrong Number (Anatole Litvak, 1948)
Reading:
Ned Schantz, “Telephonic Film,” Film Quarterly 56, 4 (2003): 23-35.
Michael Chion, The Voice in Cinema (Columbia UP, 1998). Selections.
The Phantom of the Operator (Martel, 2004)
Week Eight Mobile Phones: Social and Technical History *Conversational Analysis Due*
Reading:
Goggin, Ch. 2, “Making Voice Portable: The Early History of the Cell Phone”
Manuel Castells et. al., “The Social Differentiation of Wireless Communication Users: Age,
Gender, Ethnicity, and Socioeconomic Status,” in: Mobile Communication and Society: A Global
Perspective (MIT Press, 2007), 39-76.
In Handbook of Mobile Communication Studies:
Ch. 7, Jan Chipchase, “Reducing Illiteracy as a Barrier to Mobile Communication”
Ch. 32, James Katz, “Mainstreamed Mobiles in Daily Life”
Week Nine Convergence
Reading:
Goggin, Part IV: Mobile Convergences (“On Mobile Photography,” “The Third Screen: Mobile
Internet and Television,” “Next gen mobile: 3G, 4G, and the return of location”)
Sumanth Gopinath, “Ringtones, or the Auditory Logic of Globalization,” First Monday
(December 2005)
8
SAMPLE SYLLABUS – This syllabus is provided as a sample. Course content may vary.
http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1295/1215
Handbook of Mobile Communication Studies:
Ch. 30, James Katz and Sophia Krzys Acord, “Mobile Games and Entertainment”
Ch. 31, Youn-ah Kang, “Online Communities on the Move: Mobile Play in Korea”
Week Ten Mobility and Space
Reading:
Adriana de Souza e Silva, “Interfaces of Hybrid Spaces,” in: The Cell Phone Reader: Essays in
Social Transformation. Edited by Anandam Kavoori and Noah Arceneaux (New York: Peter
Lang, 2006), 19-44.
Handbook of Mobile Communication Studies:
Ch. 10, Sherry Turkle, “Always-On/Always-on-You: The Tethered Self”
Ch. 14, Naomi Baron, “Adjusting the Volume: Technology and Multitasking in Discourse
Control”
Ch. 8, Patricia Mechael, “Health Services and Mobiles: A Case from Egypt”
Ch. 5, Pui-lam Law and Yinni Peng, “Mobile Networks: Migrant Workers in Southern China”
Week Eleven Mobile Languages
Reading:
Sadie Plant, On the Mobile
http://www.motorola.com/mot/doc/0/234_MotDoc.pdf
Goggin, Ch. 4, “Txt msg: The Rise and Rise of Messaging Cultures”
Handbook of Mobile Communication Studies:
Ch. 11, Christian Licoppe, “The Mobile Phone’s Ring”
Ch. 12, Scott Campbell, “Mobile Technology and the Body: Apparatgeist, Fashion, and
Function”
Week Twelve Mobilization: Communication and Political Action *Mobile Activity Due*
Reading:
Handbook of Mobile Communication Studies:
Ch. 17, Howard Rheingold, “Mobile Media and Political Collective Action”
Ch. 19, Mohammad Ibrahine, “Mobile Communication and Sociopolitical Change in the Arab
World”
Ch. 9, Lourdes Portus, “How the Urban Poor Acquire and Give Meaning to the Mobile Phone”
9
SAMPLE SYLLABUS – This syllabus is provided as a sample. Course content may vary.
Vicente Rafael, “The Cell Phone and the Crowd: Messianic Politics in the Contemporary
Philippines,” in: Histories of the Future. Edited by Daniel Rosenberg and Susan Harding (Duke
UP, 2005), 75-103.
Goggin, Ch. 5, “Cellular Disability: Consumption, Design, and Access”
Week Thirteen Mobile Art, Txt Msg Fiction, & Locative Narrative
Reading:
Metaphonica, Mobile Art (article)
http://metaphonica.com/soundart_mobileart/
IDEO, Social Mobiles
http://www.ideo.com/work/item/social-mobiles
Brian House, “Subversive (Mobile) Storytelling,” http://knifeandfork.org/thewrench/sms
Read and Participate: Knifeandfork’s The Wrench, a mobile phone text-message exchange with
an artificially intelligent agent.
http://knifeandfork.org/thewrench/
Brian House, “Placing Voices”
http://brianhouse.net/placingvoices/
Jeremy Hight, “View from Above: Locative Narrative and the Landscape,”
http://leoalmanac.org/journal/Vol_14/lea_v14_n07-08/jhight.asp
Jeremy Hight, “Narrative Archaeology,” http://www.xcp.bfn.org/hight.html
In class:
Dialtones Telesymphony
http://www.flong.com/projects/telesymphony/
Scanner 1, selections
Sundance Film Festival Global Short Film Project for the Mobile
http://sundance.gsm.org/
Week Fourteen
Presentation of Student Papers
10
SAMPLE SYLLABUS – This syllabus is provided as a sample. Course content may vary.
Historical Periodical Assignment
Due Week 5
4-5 pages
Find an article, story or advertisement related to the telegraph, landline telephone, or early
radiotelephone in a “historical periodical.” This can be a scholarly journal, a popular
magazine, a daily newspaper, or a technical bulletin. Look for an item that dates to 1950 or
earlier, along the lines of the readings from the first part of our course.
Write a 4-5 page essay a) describing the item (What is it? Where was it published? Who
produced it? Why is it significant?), b) contextualizing the item (use of a “secondary source”
may be required to explain the historical context), and c) analyzing the item using one or
more course readings.
Your paper should have a clear thesis, tied to one of the arguments made by a course
author (i.e. Peters on the technification of communication; Marvin on communication
technology and Western imperialism; Ong on secondary orality; Menke on “information.”).
Your paper should be referenced according to The Chicago Manual of Style:
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html
Example Topics:











A source cited by a course author
An article in an AT&T publication such as the Bell System Technical Journal (order
from storage), the Bell Laboratories Record (browse bound volumes in the
Engineering Library), or Bell Telephone Magazine (browse in Lippincott Library)
Browse back issues of a popular magazine such as The Saturday Evening Post or
Harper’s in the microfilm collection on the first floor of Van Pelt for telephone
advertisements (you can analyze an advertisement in terms of audience, gender,
representation of the purpose of communication, etc.).
Run a keyword search using GoogleScholar, JSTOR, EBSCO, PROQUEST or
other library database for topics such as:
Telephone hardware or technical component (i.e. a type of telephone handset)
An inventor or a telephone employee
A code system for telegraphy
Telharmonium (a 19th-century musical instrument that made use of the telephone)
A “phone phreak”
Another example of Telegraph or Telephone Fiction
Voice-printing or Wire-tapping (early history or single legal case)
Rural Tele-medicine
(From ALA Glossary of Library and Information Science, adapted by Yale University Library)
http://www.library.yale.edu/instruction/primsource.html
11
SAMPLE SYLLABUS – This syllabus is provided as a sample. Course content may vary.
12
SAMPLE SYLLABUS – This syllabus is provided as a sample. Course content may vary.
Primary Source
Primary sources provide first-hand testimony or direct evidence concerning a topic under
investigation. They are created by witnesses or recorders who experienced the events or
conditions being documented. Often these sources are created at the time when the events
or conditions are occurring, but primary sources can also include autobiographies,
memoirs, and oral histories recorded later. A report of scientific research, a newspaper
article, or an original work of fiction or art are other examples of primary sources. Primary
sources are characterized by their content, regardless of whether they are available in
original format, in microfilm/microfiche, in digital format, or in published format. (The
same document, or other piece of evidence, may be a primary source in one investigation
and secondary in another.)
Other Primary Sources: Manuscripts and Archives
Manuscript and archival materials are unique resources that can be found in only one
library or institution (though copies may be available elsewhere on microfilm or
microfiche.) Generally speaking, manuscript collections relate to individuals or family
groups while archival collections are generated by organizations or institutions.
"Manuscript" originally described any handwritten item, but the format of manuscript and
archival materials now is diverse and may include letters and diaries, photographs, maps,
architectural drawings, objects, computer tape, video and audio cassettes, etc. The size of a
collection may range from a single document to hundreds or even thousands of linear feet.
Secondary Source
A secondary source interprets or analyzes an historical event or phenomenon. It is a source
that was not produced at the time of the event but is at least one step removed. Books and
articles that are based on primary sources but include analysis and evaluation are
secondary sources.
13
SAMPLE SYLLABUS – This syllabus is provided as a sample. Course content may vary.
Telephone Activity and Technology Review
Due Week 8
What can you do with a telephone? How does the medium of the telephone enhance or
constrain one’s language, behavior, and relationships? For this assignment, you are to
review a mobile phone application or telephone activity. Your review should be 3-5 pages
in length, double-spaced. Make sure to include an introduction with a thesis, some
descriptive context for the activity, your critiques or recommendations, and a conclusion.
Interpret or analyze your topic with reference to media theory, course terms, or the
changing nature of telephony.
Example topics:
Try one of the GPS applications for the mobile phone described in the January 19, 2009
issue of Wired magazine:
http://www.wired.com/print/gadgets/wireless/magazine/17-02/lp_10coolapps
Take the “Discover Penn” cell phone tour:
http://www.facilities.upenn.edu/mapsBldgs/view_map.php3?id=530
http://www.upenn.edu/almanac/volumes/v55/n17/discoverpenn.html
Dial-a-Poem at the Kelly Writers’ House every day for a week:
http://afilreis.blogspot.com/2009/01/dial-poem.html
http://www.pw.org/content/pause_podcast_and_dialapoem
Use the social networking service Socialight to read and post “sticky notes” in various
locations:
http://socialight.com/
For example reviews, see:
MIT’s Technology Review
http://www.technologyreview.com/
See especially their special reports on “Your Next Cell Phone”:
http://www.technologyreview.com/specialreports/specialreport.aspx?id=3
For other examples (written in a more casual style than this assignment requires), see
Wired Magazine:
Matthew Honan’s “I Am Here: One Man’s Experiment with the Location-Aware Lifestyle”
http://www.wired.com/print/gadgets/wireless/magazine/17-02/lp_guineapig
“Remixable iPhone Album Points to the Future”
http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/02/remixable-album.html
14
SAMPLE SYLLABUS – This syllabus is provided as a sample. Course content may vary.
Talking About Telephone Talk
(Mobile Call-In Activity)
Due Week 12 by midnight
“We experience telephone conversation most every day, yet rarely do we study its sounds…How did we
become the people of the phone? What are the prices of this progress?”
—Robert Hopper, Telephone Conversation
What can and cannot be communicated over the telephone? How does the medium
influence the pace, content or style of a conversation? What can a telephone conversation
reveal about an interaction between two people? How do mobile conversations differ from
landline or face-to-face?
This assignment requires you to reflect on the nature of mobile phone speech, through
recording, transcription, and discussion of a conversation.
Recording and Transcription (Due Week 12):
1. While you are on your mobile phone in a public setting, record a conversation
between yourself and another person using Google Voice. (GV will automatically
request their permission to record.) Download the mp3 to your computer and title it
with your last name.
2. Using the “AddFiles” feature, upload the mp3 to our class drop.io account:
http://drop.io/textmsg
The guest password is ####
3. Choose a short segment of the conversation to transcribe (~6 “turns”), following the
guidelines for Conversation Analysis in transcripts 1, 2 and 4 provided here:
http://www-staff.lboro.ac.uk/~ssca1/intro2.htm
Start by transcribing the words; then add in other sounds such as coughs and laughter; then
add other details such as pauses, overlapping speech, and word emphasis.
4. Use the “AddNotes” feature to post your transcription to our class drop.io account.
Title the note with your last name.
Discussion: (Due Week 13)
1. Use the “AddPhone” feature to leave a voicemail to our class drop.io account, in which
you briefly “talk about telephone talk.” Plan to make two points about your call/transcript,
and two points about another call/transcript. (More specifically, discuss at least two calls
with reference to four course concepts.)
15
SAMPLE SYLLABUS – This syllabus is provided as a sample. Course content may vary.
2. Make at least one reference to Hopper’s arguments about telephone speech.
What can a telephone conversation tell you about the relationship between two
people? What does it reveal about the medium itself? How do age, gender, or power
affect patterns of speech, turn-taking, or telephone openings? Is one’s status as a
caller or a receiver reflected in the conversation itself (caller hegemony,
“summons”)? Did misunderstandings or other problems with the medium occur? In
what ways is a telephone conversation similar to or different from face-to-face
dialogue? (For this last question, you might consider pauses, emphasis—the sound
of speech itself.)
3. Make at least two references to course authors who discuss mobile
communication—Plant, Turkle, Goggin, de Souza e Silva, Baron, Campbell. Make
sure to explain or define course terms before applying them to your conversation
examples.
Possible topics include: the effects of multitasking on a conversation; “tethering”
and “hybrid spaces”; Apparatgeist; impulsive communication; mobile sociability;
transparency and ubiquity.
Note:
Drop.io allows guests to sort and re-order files, as well as to delete files. You can edit or
delete any of your own posts that you are unhappy with before the final deadline.
16
SAMPLE SYLLABUS – This syllabus is provided as a sample. Course content may vary.
Final Research Paper
Due December # via e-mail
8-10 pages
Assignment:
Conduct original, historical research on any topic related to our course material. Given the
short page limit of your final paper, your topic should be fairly narrow—for instance, one
particular technical component; an inventor or a telephone employee; a little-known code
system for telegraphy; an application for an early national telephone system or for the
mobile phone; an advertising strategy. Your paper should have a clear thesis, ideally tied to
one of the arguments made by a course author (i.e. Peters on the technification of
communication; Marvin on Western imperialism; de Souza e Silva on transparency). Aim
for at least 5 “primary” and 5 “secondary” sources, and make sure to refer to a few course
readings. Your paper should be written and referenced according to The Chicago Manual of
Style: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html
Timeline:
Week 12:
Class Visit to Rare Books and Manuscripts: Introduction to Archival Research.
Submit Topic via e-mail by midnight.
Week 13:
Submit a preliminary bibliography with 5 “primary” and 5 “secondary”
sources. (5%)
Sources explained: http://www.princeton.edu/~refdesk/primary2.html
Week 14:
Submit 1-page Abstract with your thesis and a summary of your argument
or evidence. Present topic in class. (5%)
Dec. #:
Final Paper Due (25%)
Example Topics:
Throughout the semester, I have flagged good research topics as they’ve emerged in our class
discussions. Review your class notes or refer to course readings for topics.
Telharmonium (a 19th-century musical instrument that made use of the telephone)
Biography of a “phone phreak”
Telegraph fiction from outside the U.K.
A telephone artist or example of telephone art
Voice-printing or Wire-tapping (early history or single legal case)
Gender and Telephone Advertisements in a given time period and local/national context
History of the Answering Machine, Intercom, etc.
Rural Tele-medicine
“Ghost in the Phone” myths and movies in Indonesia
17