Exam Guidelines

The final exam covers the following kinds of material from our semester's readings and discussions:

Definitions.
Critical terms are transformative tools. That is, they don't simply express meanings that already exist, but enable us to make distinctions and connections that are not readily thinkable (or even possible) without these terms.

Theorists' Names, Disciplines, and Ideas
I will ask you to be able to match the names of the theorists we've read with their key ideas and opinions. To know these theorists, it's also important to know the disciplines they're from: e.g., psychology, economics, philosophy. These writers are expressing not just their personal ideas, but the perspectives of their various intellectual communities.

Overarching Issues and Debates
This exam will ask you to locate the various writers and their ideas in relation to essential issues or debates: for example, identity, ontology (the nature of reality), community, economics, politics, aesthetics (how we know what we know). The point is that these writers are not just speaking in different directions, but are debating the nature, consequences, and meaning of digital culture.