Syllabus

50:350:110 How to Pay Attention (Fall 2026)
Professor: Jim Brown
Meeting times: Monday/Wednesday, 12:30pm – 1:50pm
Meeting Place: Armitage 108
Prof. Brown’s Office: Armitage 463
Office Hours: Monday 11:00am – 12:30pm (or by appointment)
Email: jim[dot]brown[at]rutgers[dot]edu

Course Description
Attention is a practice, and certain technologies and environmental conditions can make that practice more or less difficult to enact. This course offers a survey of theories of attention from multiple disciplines, addresses research into how digital media affects attention, and offers students the methods of the arts and humanities as a set of approaches for engaging in practices of attention. The class is open to all undergraduates and will feature a number of reading and writing activities designed to develop attention practices.

Course Website: http://classes.jamesjbrownjr.net/110_fall26

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this course, my hope is that you will be able to better

1. Understand how researchers and writers study attention and the attention economy.
2. Articulate how technologies and ecologies affect attentional capacities
3. Develop a set of attention practices through the use of reading and writing, especially practices rooted in traditions of the arts and humanities
4. Make arguments about how to address the current attention crisis.

Required Texts and Materials

• Attensity! by The Friends of Attention (must be a paper copy)
• A notebook dedicated to this class for reading and lecture/discussion notes, which you will bring to class every day and use for quizzes, activities, and exams.
• A folder or binder for paper handouts (I recommend a binder)

Additional reading materials will be distributed as paper handouts.

A Typical Class Day
On a typical class day, you’ll come to class, put away your phone, and bring your notebook to the front of the room. Your notebook should have detailed notes on the reading that is due for that day. When you bring your notes to Prof. Brown, you will also collect the day’s activity or quiz, which should take no more than 10 minutes to complete. Upon completion of the day’s activity, you will turn it in and collect your reading notes. We will then start lecture and discussion. Lectures will always involve your participation, so you should be ready to both take notes and discuss the reading.

Attendance and Participation
Attendance and participation in this class are crucial, and they are worth 30% of your grade, which makes each day’s attendance worth 1% of your grade. You will receive .5 points for showing up and another .5 points for actively participating in class. These numbers might seem small, but those points add up. Missing class means missing crucial material that you will need for projects and for understanding future readings. It also means missing graded work (in-class quizzes and activities). That work cannot be made up.

If you arrive more than 5 minutes late for class, you will receive half-credit for that day’s attendance. If you arrive more than 10 minutes late, you will be marked absent. If you miss more than 10 minutes of class (leaving early, extended breaks in the middle of class) you will be marked absent. If you are on your phone during class, you will be marked absent. If there is something that regularly prevents you from arriving to class on time, please speak with me during the first week of class.

Course Work and Grades
This class is comprised of 100 points. The breakdown of those points is as follows:

30: Attendance and Participation
15: Reading Notes (checked every class)
25: In-class activities and quizzes (completed every class)
10: Leading an Attention Practice
10: Manifesto Presentation
10: Your Attention Manifesto

Please note that doing the reading, taking detailed notes, attending class, and actively participating in discussions accounts for 70% of your grade. This class is designed as an in-person experience, and much of our work happens during class meetings.

Grade Breakdown
A 90-100
B+ 88-89
B 80-87
C+ 78-79
C 70-77
D 60-69
F 59 and below

Content Warnings
If we will be reading and discussing material that addresses sensitive topics, I will do my best to let you know in advance. If there are certain specific topics you would like me to provide warnings about, please let me know. I will do my best to flag content based on your requests.

Technology Policy
Unless otherwise stated, no one is ever permitted to use a phone during class (this includes the instructor). Use of your phone during class will mean that you are marked absent. If you need access to your phone during class for an emergency reason, please let me know prior to class, but even in such cases the phone must be put away. During certain class sessions, we may use computers or other technology, but this will be very rare. Please observe whatever rules are in place for that day’s meeting.

Canvas and Course Website
This class will not make use of Canvas for many things. While I will use it to communicate with you and to post grades, nearly all of our work will happen inside the classroom and on paper. The course website will have important information about assignments and policies. Pay close attention to the course schedule as we move through the semester. I reserve the right to move things around on our schedule as necessary, but I will always tell you well in advance if I am making changes and will provide a printed copy of the updated schedule.

Email
Please pay close attention to your email for course announcements. If you email me on a weekday, I will respond within 24 hours. If you email during the weekend, you likely will not receive a response before Monday morning.

AI Statement*
For most assignments in this class, you will not be permitted to use AI technologies. In general, I would discourage you from using these tools at all for your reading and writing. At the very least, I would encourage you to limit your use of them.

We’ve all encountered poor AI outputs (often called AI Slop or “hallucinations”). Beyond AI’s ineffectiveness for many tasks, it is important to recognize that AI use has significant social and environmental impacts. Avoiding unnecessary use of AI can help minimize environmental degradation, human exploitation, and improve your learning experiences. Please consider the following before using AI:

• Labor and learning impacts: AI depends upon biased, incomplete, and incorrect data and is largely unproven in teaching and learning scenarios. Accepting AI’s poor outputs can negatively impact student learning and infringes on both student and instructor intellectual property rights. For your instructors, it worsens their working conditions and creates job and wage insecurity. More broadly, digital hardware supply chains often rely on extracting rare earth minerals through exploitative mining and forced labor.

• Environmental impacts: AI depends on intense energy use, which increases greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change. AI technologies have led to the construction of massive data centers that disrupt neighborhoods and ecosystems. As AI-invested companies are focused on continual expansion, upgrades of AI software generate immense amounts of e-waste.

*Portions of this section of the syllabus are taken from a statement written by the Rutgers AAUP-AFT Climate Justice Committee.

University policies and resources

Academic Integrity
My assumption is that any work you turn in for this course has been completed by you.

Code of Conduct
Rutgers University-Camden seeks a community that is free from violence, threats, and intimidation; that is respectful of the rights, opportunities, and welfare of students, faculty, staff, and guests of the University; and that does not threaten the physical or mental health or safety of members of the University community and includes classroom space. As a student at the University, you are expected adhere to Student Code of Conduct: https://camden.rutgers.edu/deanofstudents/community-standards

Office of Disability Services
The Office of Disability Services (ODS) provides students with confidential accommodation services in order to allow students with documented physical, mental, and learning disabilities to successfully complete their course of study at Rutgers University – Camden. The ODS provides accommodation services, which can include readers, interpreters, alternate text, special equipment, and note takers. The ODS also works with students, faculty, staff and administrators to enforce the American with Disabilities Act of 1990. https://ods.rutgers.edu/

When in Doubt, Come Talk to Prof. Brown
A syllabus can never account for all of the strange things that come up during the semester. If you are having trouble, have questions, or need help at any point, please email me, talk to me before or after class, or visit my office hours.