" This course will guide graduate students through the process of using rapid prototyping and CAD/CAM devices in a studio environment. The class has a theoretical focus on machine use within the process of design. Each student is expected to have completed one graduate level of design computing with a full understanding of solid modeling in CAD. Students are also expected to have completed at least one graduate design studio."

Explores the impact of the printing press upon European politics and culture during the first several centuries after Gutenberg and compares these changes with the possibilities and problems inherent in contemporary electronic technologies of the word. Assignments include formal essays and online projects. There has been much discussion in recent years, on this campus and elsewhere, about the death of the book. Digitization and various forms of electronic media, some critics say, are rendering the printed text as obsolete as the writing quill. In this subject, we will examine the claims for and against the demise of the book, but we will also supplement these arguments with an historical perspective they lack: we will examine texts, printing technologies, and reading communities from roughly 1450 to the present. We will begin with the theoretical and historical overviews of Walter Ong and Elizabeth Eisenstein, after which we will study specific cases such as English chapbooks, Inkan knotted and dyed strings, late nineteenth-century recording devices, and newspapers online today. We will also visit a rare book library and make a poster on a hand-set printing press.

Offers an overview of the social, cultural, political, and economic impact of mediated communication on modern culture. Combines critical discussions with hands-on "experiments" working with different media. Media covered include radio, television, film, the printed word, and digital technologies. Topics include the nature and function of media, core media institutions, and media in transition.

Centers on historical eras in which the form and function of media technologies were radically transformed. Includes consideration of the "Gutenberg Revolution," the rise of modern mass media, and the "digital revolution," among other case studies of media transformation and cultural change. Readings in cultural and social history and historiographic method.

Combines practical instruction, readings, lectures, and group discussions intended to foster an aesthetic appreciation of photography and digital imaging, and a critical awareness of how images in our culture are produced and constructed. Practical instruction in basic black and white techniques, digital imaging, fundamentals of 35mm camera operation, studio lighting, film exposure and development, and darkroom printing. A student-initiated term project provides opportunity to develop technical and perception skills. Work is presented in a critical form throughout term. students. Subject combines practical instruction, readings, lectures, field trips, visiting artists, group discussions, and individual reviews. Fosters a critical awareness of how images in our culture are produced and constructed. Student-initiated term project at the core of exploration. Special consideration given to the relationship of space and the photographic image. Practical instruction in basic black and white techniques, digital imaging, fundamentals of camera operation, lighting, film exposure, development, and printing.

Explores the impact of the printing press upon European politics and culture during the first several centuries after Gutenberg and compares these changes with the possibilities and problems inherent in contemporary electronic technologies of the word. Assignments include formal essays and online projects. There has been much discussion in recent years, on this campus and elsewhere, about the death of the book. Digitization and various forms of electronic media, some critics say, are rendering the printed text as obsolete as the writing quill. In this subject we will examine the claims for and against the demise of the book, but we also supplement these arguments with an historical perspective they lack: we examine books and printing technology during the Early Modern period of European history, from roughly 1450 to 1800. We will begin with the theoretical and historical overviews of Walter Ong and Elizabeth Eisenstein, after which we will study specific cases such as the writings and readers of Erasmus and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, English chapbooks, and stage plays in print. Finally, we will reconsider the issues raised by digital technologies today in light of these historical perspectives. This subject is jointly listed as 21H.418 and CMS.880. It satisfies requirements towards the Major and the Minor in History and in Comparative Media Studies, and is also open to graduate students in the Comparative Media Studies Program and in other MIT and Harvard graduate programs.