Seminar, four hours. Nature of information studies--ontological, epistemological, and ethical accounts of information and of information arts and sciences. Conceptions, theories, and models of information; information-related artifacts, agents, contexts, institutions, practices, properties, values, and related phenomena. Interdisciplinary context--subfields of information studies and cognate disciplines. Frameworks for theory construction, such as critical theory, discourse analysis, hermeneutics, phenomenology, semiotics, social epistemology. Letter grading.