Demonstration and Tutorial Page

The Internet: Knowledge and Information in the Electronic Age

by Randy Bass: Director, Center for Electronic Projects in American Culture Studies (CEPACS); Georgetown University

Designed for workshops at:

University of Maryland, College Park; sponsored by the American Studies Program--March 29, 1995
George Mason University (With Trent Batson, Gallaudet); sponsored by the Chesapeake Chapter of the American Studies Association--February 11, 1995

Trent Batson's Chart on Changing Paradigms of Knowledge (see handout)
John December's Internet Web Text: A very useful resource for information about the Internet and "Computer Mediated Communications"

INFORMATION RETRIEVAL

What is a Gopher?
- The H-AMSTDY Gopher
- The University of Maryland Gopher
Doing a Veronica Search: The Primary Search Engine for Gopher
The Subject Trees at the University of Michigan (another model [transient?] for finding information on Gopher)
The World Wide Web: A Major Source of Information Retrieval (see below)

COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATION

USENET and Bulletin Boards. Discussion lists that you "go to" to read. Like buying a magazine or newspaper at a newstand; thousands of topics, from soc.tibet to alt.melrose.place
Listservs and Electronic Conferences Discussion lists that come to you in your mailbox. Like subscribing to a magazine that's delivered to your home. Some fine examples of academic listservs include T-AMLIT ("Teaching the American Literatures"), H-AMSTDY (American Studies), ARTIFACT (Material Culture), and WMST-L (Womens Studies)--to pick a few randomly!
Two World Wide Web Sites Connected to Electronic Academic Discussion Lists
- Electronic Archives for Teaching the American Literatures (at Georgetown University)
- HUMBUL: The Humanities Bulletin Board and Oxford Text Projects
MOO's and MUD's: "Real Time Meeting Places"
Collaborative Writing on the Web:
- An Absolutely Terrific Example:
  RHETNET: A Cyberjournal for Rhetoric and Writing

Navigating the World Wide Web: Some Good Places to Start

Some Key American Studies Sites

Applications of the World Wide Web for Teaching and Courses

Steve Krause (Bowling Green State University): "Great Ideas" and "Writing About Film"
Mary Kay Duggan (UC Berkeley, Library and Information Science): "Print, Literacy, and Power: To 1900"
Martin Irvine (Georgetown University): " Narrative Matters" and " Introduction to Medieval Latin"
Course affiliated with the University of Virginia, Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities: including "Town Planning in Post-Suburban America".

Some Other Fun Places to Go

Downtown Anywhere: Front Street
EXPO: Ticket Office (World Touring Museum Exhibitions)
Art Crimes: The Writing on the Wall
World Wide Arts Resources
ANCESTRY: Religion, Death and Culture (MFA project by Belinda Di Leo)
Hill-Thomas Hearings Designed for Educational Use
Anthropology Interactive
The Labyrinth Project. Classy Web Project on Medieval Studies (That's what they called American Studies in the Middle Ages.)