When the terms "techie" and "fuzzy" were first coined to categorize Stanford undergraduates, they were used to distinguish between students interested in technology (science and engineering) and those not (the humanities). However, as technology becomes increasingly integrated into campus life, these divisions break down: in a 2001 CS201 survey, 41% of Stanford students identified themselves as tech-fuzzy (tuzzy). In fact, it seems hard to imagine a student untouched by campus tech-life - from introspective blogging, to late-night IM chatting, text-messaging, gaming, downloading i-Tunes, and accessing course materials on-line, the Stanford student is immersed in digital culture. Even writing itself has evolved into a tech-dependent process: when was the last time you wrote an essay by hand or researched a topic without Google or Socrates?

In Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Culture, we will use writing itself to explore the phenomenon of our tech-saturated society. We will examine a variety of debates about the implications of digital culture, from Howard Rheingold's recent investigation of cell phones and collective activism, to Julian Dibbel's classic indictment of personal freedom and violation on the internet, to the cutting edge articles written by the writers from Wired and SlashDot. In each case, we will examine how classical principles of rhetoric are used to create persuasive arguments about these very modern issues.

In your own work, you will engage in a research project on an issue related to digital culture. You might investigate the ethics of filesharing or internet suirvellance, spyware, and personal privacy. You might consider the impact of Instant Messaging on interpersonal relationships or the addictive qualities of multi-player games. You might look at media representations of technology, from current advertising campaigns to the futures so graphically represented in movies like The Matrix¸ Minority Report, and AI. You might even focus on issues closer to home: the use of technology in educational settings or the representation of women and minorities in the computer sciences. We will undertake our examination of rhetoric and digital culture in a technologically enhanced classroom, but our discussion will embrace both fuzzy and techie perspectives.