English 411

Week 5: Another Perspective on the Power of Collective Wisdom

Next week we’ll stick to the syllabus without much variation, focusing almost exclusively on Cass R. Sunstein‘s book Infotopia. As you read, you’ll notice several similarities between this book and Here Comes Everybody, but don’t assume that Sunstein and Shirky are identical twins, intellectually speaking. In our class discussions, we’ll ferret out the differences between these two books and find connections with other thinkers and writers. For Tuesday, please read pages 3-102 in Infotopia; for Thursday, please read 103-145. Emily C. will lead our class discussion on Thursday.

[Interesting side note: Cass Sunstein was recently appointed by President Obama to run the OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.]

Thursday is also the second due date for your short papers. If you would like to discuss potential topics, please email me or see me during office hours by Tuesday at the latest.

One last administrative note: I’ve noticed a few duplicate posts to our Delicious.com list over the past two weeks. Before you add a post to the class site, please take a few minutes to review the recent posts of your classmates. The easiest way to keep up with the Delicious posts from the class is to use an RSS feed reader like NetNewsWire (Mac), FeedDemon (Windows), or Google Reader (platform independent). Once you download one of these programs (or create an account with Google Reader), you can easily add our Delicious feed to your subscription list.