Story Lab

ATEC 7390
FALL 2005
Thomas Riccio, Professor
Office 972.883.2016 (voice mail)
Thomas.riccio@utdallas.edu
www.thomas-riccio.net
RICCIO Office hours: TR 1-3 and by Arrangement
Office location: JO 4.920

Mihai Nadin, Professor

Office: 972.883
Nadin@utdallas.edu

Class times: R 3:30-6:15

Class location: JO 1.216 rehearsal studio

Course requirements and Evaluation Criteria

• Students will be asked to participate, present and/or
create various story events and write a series of
documents relating to story.
• A longer essay reporting and dealing with
interpretative and historical perspectives of a
specific aspect of story will also be required as a
final project. Minimum 6,000 words
• Students are expected to actively participate in
seminar discussions and have reading done prior to
class.

Grading
Papers: Responses, Exercises 56%(8x7 Pts each)
Final Project 34%
Participation 10%

Late or incomplete work is not acceptable

Incompletes will not be given in this class
Plagiarism and cheating is unacceptable
All dates and assignments are subject to change
Assignments will be made with ample time for completion
given please be alert to alterations or corrections in
the schedule

Attendance Policy: Two (2) unexcused absences permitted;

however each subsequent unexcused absence will result in

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the lowering of one full letter grade per absence.

Two late arrivals (20 minutes + after the hour unless

lateness is pre-arranged) will count as one absence.
Note: No Gum Chewing or Eating in Class. Soft Drinks,
Coffee, and water permitted.

Required Reading
1. Civilization of Illiteracy, by Mihai Nadin, Dresden
University Press
2. A Mind at Work, Vilanova, et al, Synchron Press
3. Rhythm Science, by Paul Miller, MIT Press
4. Additional information will be required and found
online or as handouts.

Weekly Assignments
August 18

Story-Telling: Who, what, when, where, how?

§ What is a story?
§ A way of seeing, articulating, constructing
a world?
§ A way of connecting realities?
§ Tell a Story, your story?

Read Selection #1 / Assignment #1

August 25
Mythology: The Story of cultures
§ A way of creating, organizing and
participating in the world.
§ A paradigm for being in the world:
story/myth as working model.
§ Myth to culture to society to daily lives
the concentric circles of myth’s story

Read Selection #2
Assignment #2
September 1
Mythology: The template of realities
§ Myth’s story as bringer of order from
chaos; creating “reality”
§ Myth’s story as generator of memes; memory
packets.

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 Read Selection #3 (Bushmen and Eagle-Wolf)

September 8
Ritual: The story performed.
§ Ritual as a story “place” manifested.
§ Place as the reference of ritual’s story
§ Ritual as a story told in on multiple levels
and interactions: word, action, objects,
movements, sounds, sights, smells, and
atmosphere.
Assignment #3

September 15
Ritual Continued
§ Ritual’s stories as a place to heal,
communicate origins, and belong.
Story as keeper and container of place—
reflexive and interactive
§ The Body of a story: the story we share,
beginning, middle, and end.
§ Biology in a place an extrapolated metaphor.

September 21
The Anatomy of Story
§ Story, Plot, Theme, Character, Style, Genre,
Expression
§ Thinking and being in episodes.
§ The techniques and elements of story telling
and making
§ The necessity, centrality, variety, and
simplicity of plots

Assignment #4
September 22
Story Moves from One Place to Another
§ The removal from one place and origins to a
new place and new reality
§ Breakdown of the old making of the new:
Post-Modernism
§ Creating a new story: the confluence of
cultures and stories
§ The metaphor of the body updated and
transformed by technology; the microscopic
meets the far terrestrial in simultaneity

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 Assignment#5

September 29
Story in a Changing World
§ The Chasm Between Yesterday and Tomorrow

Read Civilization of Illiteracy Selection

October 6
From Orality to Writing
§ Signs to Language
§ Individual and Collective Writing
§ Language and Logic

Read Civilization of Illiteracy Selection

October 13
Language and the Visual
§ How many words in a look?

Read Civilization of Illiteracy Selection & Forge

Assignment #6

October 20
From Orality to Writing

Read Civilization of Illiteracy Selection

Assignment #7

October 27
Literacy as Mediating Mechanism

Read Civilization of Illiteracy Selection

Assignment #8
November 3
The Sense of Design
§ Drawing on the Future
§ Designing the Virtual

Read Civilization of Illiteracy Selection

November 10
From Democracy to Media-ocracy a Sense of the Future
§ The Interactive Future
§ Transcending Literacy

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 Read Civilization of Illiteracy Selection

November 17

A new Story paradigm emerges: The End of History

§ The collapsing of many stories into one
§ A structural reordering of the world: a new
mythology, ritual, and body
§ Reflections of social and cultural evolution
§ The collapsing of stories and culture
§ Machine and semi-conductor as metaphor
§ Overlapping and interconnected realities:
Nonlinearity.
FINAL PROJECT DUE

Seminar party at the instructor’s Home to be arranged

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