• Option A: The e-journal, transcending silence…, accepts undergraduate student research papers, creative writing, or artwork. You may decide to develop your photo/audio essay into a longer essay, based on further research into media's impact on your daily life; or, as part of our class's participation in the Frankenstein Manifesto:Science Fiction Film Series this semester, you may choose one film from this series and conduct research on the film's history (including research on the film's reception by movie critics and diverse audiences, the making of the film, biography of the filmmaker and principle cast members, etc), as well as analyze the film for its depiction of women, people of color, working poor, disabled, queer or other marginalized groups (or lack of such representations). Based on your research, compose a 15-20 page essay (typed and double-spaced). You will be expected to work on this project in drafts: the first draft to be turned in on Thursday, March 3. The second draft will count as an official submission to the transcending silence... editorial board, which is due on Thursday, March 31, and which must be turned in on CD/disk in html format as a digitized and possibly hypertext version - including multimedia (such as visual images, audio, or video clips) - of your research essay: see sample essays in the Journal of Multimedia History. If your submission is accepted for publication, a third and final draft, which should include major revisions based on feedback from the editorial board, is due Tuesday, April 19.
• Option B: The e-journal will publish the winning student works that are entered in the University-Libraries-funded Sci-Fi writing and digital art competitions. The competition invites such creative genres as a sci-fi short story (which may include hypertext fiction) or play and such visual works as digital art, digital photography, or digital video. For the purposes of this class, your Sci-Fi themed work must address futuristic (or fantastical) struggles with women's sexual objection. This submission is due in class Tuesday, March 8; you must also submit a hard copy and email in an attachment by the official deadline (March 15) to:

  Carol L. Anderson
  University Library 104
  1400 Washington Avenue , Albany , NY 12222
  canderson@uamail.albany.edu

You will need to choose Option A or B by Tuesday, February 15. Explain your choice in a 2-3 page proposal/prospectus (typed and double-spaced).

Website Team (25 points)
From Production to Consumption: in teams of 4, collaborate on the creation of a website that provides information and traces the impact of women's bodies in our global information age, from the worker/producer, who assembles our media, to the consumer who is seduced into buying these products. How are women's bodies used on both ends of media production? Your website should include interactive features (such as images and hyperlinks), a bibliography of secondary sources (compiled from each team member's annotated bibliography assignment) and a list of related and valuable websites linked to the site. Your team may focus on one of the following media topics:
I. "Who Assembled This Computer? What's on the Screen?" Explore the role of women workers in our digital age; what lives do they lead, and why is computer media making such lives "invisible" to the rest of us? Then, explore how the (hyper)visibility of women's representations in cyberspace supports this invisibility.
II. "Who Made this Lingerie? What Makes it Sexy? Do You Have to Starve to Fit into it?" Explore the role of women workers in sweatshops; what lives do they lead, and why do all of our fashion ads make such lives "invisible" to the rest of us? Then, explore how the sexual objectification of women in fashion ads supports this invisibility. You may also want to explore the connections between women in poor countries who are thin, due to famine, and women in wealthier countries, who are thin because they strive to be beautiful. Similar questions can be applied to the other topics below.
III. "Who Made this Toy? What Fantasies does it Sustain?"
IV. "Who Made this Video Game? Who Has the Power and Control?"
V. "Who is Forced to Work in Porn Industries? How is Pornography Mainstreamed in Our Everyday Lives?"
VI. "Where is the 'Real' Cancun? How is Spring Break and Sex Tourism Linked?"
VII. "Who Stole the Music? From Poverty to Hip-Hop to Sweatshops."
VIII. "Whose Harem is This? From Burquas to Thong Bikinis."
IX. "What's Wrong with Women's Bodies? Cosmetic Surgery, Thinness, and the First World Woman."
X. "Are Diamonds Really Girls' Best Friend? From Romance to Warfare."
On each team, students may perform one of these roles: web master; managing editor; researcher; bibliographer. A website team narrative (typed and double-spaced), including the website's written text and a proposal for how this information will be digitized in an interactive hyper-format, is due Tuesday, April 12. The website is due on a CD/disk by Monday, May 9, 12 noon in my mailbox, Social Science 341. Only websites receiving a grade of A- or higher will be published on our class website.