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Writing Technology: Symbols, Codes, and Translating Machines
Last Updated: 2026-02-05 16:06:35
Abstract
This course explores the two sides of writing technology. On the one hand, it examines today’s most ubiquitous writing technology: the digital writing of modern computers. On the other, it considers a set of literary texts that reflect on such technology in writing. The goal of the course is to habituate ourselves to moving between these two sides.
Objective
After completing this course, students will be able to provide examples of the role literary texts played in the development of communications technology as well as cite instances where literature reflects on the implications of such technology. Drawing on our readings, students will be able to debate the relevance of humanist postulates—such as the difference between rhetoric and grammar, meaning and information, thinking and calculating—to our digital culture.
Content
In this course we will examine the two sides of writing technology. On the one hand, we will direct our attention to that most conspicuous writing technology of our world: the coded symbols of digital computers. On the other hand, we will consider a set of fictional works that explore the forms, uses, and implications of such technology in writing. We will also regularly jump back and forth between the two sides of the issue, literally and figuratively re-coding literary writing in the language of information theory to see what is lost—and what is gained—in translation. The tutelary spirit of our course is the American mathematician Claude Shannon, the author of The Mathematical Theory of Communication and the founder of information theory. But Shannon’s own muse was Edgar Allen Poe, whose 1843 story, “The Gold-Bug,” inspired Shannon to regard language as a probabilistic system susceptible to mathematical analysis. A passionate reader of Poe, Shannon was also fascinated by the vertiginous vocabulary of James Joyce’s novels, texts whose exceptional information content he contrasted with C.K. Ogden’s proposal for “Basic English,” a simplified, “universal” language consisting of only 850 English words. We will examine all of these sources as well as others so that we may reconnect the key terms of Shannon’s theory (“information,” “code,” “message,” “translation,” etc.) with the literary traditions that—at least in part—inspired him. Over the course of the semester, we will turn from specific writing technologies to more capacious logics of control: writing technologies ‘writ large.’ After looking at the machine languages and feedback mechanisms that underwrite the mid-century field of cybernetics, we will read excerpts from Samuel Beckett’s experimental novel, Watt, and examine how it imagines the intersection of human cognition with digital logic. Watt, Beckett’s hapless protagonist, obliges us to reexamine the programs we habitually follow and to ask ourselves, ‘watt’ has digital communications technology done to how we live and how we think?
General Information
- Language
- English
- Levels
- DS
Examination
- Type
- graded semester performance
Course Components
| Type | Title | Time & Place | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| lecture | Writing Technology: Symbols, Codes, and Translating Machines |
|
2 h weekly |
Offered In
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Science in Perspective (In “Science in Perspective”-courses students learn to reflect on ETH’s STEM subjects from the perspective of humanities, political and social sciences. Only the courses listed below will be recognized as "Science in Perspective" courses.)
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Type A: Enhancement of Reflection Competence (SiP courses are recommended for bachelor students after their first-year examination and for all master- or doctoral students. All SiP courses are listed in Type A. Courses listed under Type B are only recommendations for enrollment for specific departments.)
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