A "Lack of Non-Verbal Cues" in our Action-Packed, Balanced Breakfasts Society

A "Lack of Non-Verbal Cues" in our Action-Packed, Balanced Breakfasts Society? I'm torn.

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One the one hand, I've seen the deadened-eyes, the twitching fingers seemingly still curved around a mouse or joystick and the mindless drip of drool stringing from chin to floor, all signs of one, horrible monster: the computer zombie. My mother strictly regulated online gaming, video game consoles and all electronic entertainment for years, but my little brothers still did and still do find every opportunity to get their "fix." I've experienced myself the pointless drivel and real-life-sucking falseness of cyberspace: cyber friendship, cyber chatting, cyber sharing, and now the issue before us, cyber creativity and cyber academia. Can we really have any kind of real discussion without human forms and beings and breath and a physical context for the situation?

I'm a literature student, and emerging participant in the academic conversation about literature, so I guess I have already given in to this idea. I conduct almost all of my "conversations" on paper, through decades, in online library indexes and in databases. I don't even have to talk to a librarian anymore (yes, those light-sensitive library moles previously considered the climax of anti-sociality have been one-upped by ME!) to do my research, write my papers and have my "conversation." I've never met one scholar (except a few professors from my own university) that I've cited in a paper. To exaggeratedly quote from one of my husband's letters to me on my mission "Everywhere you go, you talk to people. You teach people, contact people; you always have your companion to talk to and even argue with. I live in a faceless, heartless pit of words and symbols, working out my meaningless Masters degree in a world of strangers." (Don't worry, it wasn't really that bad... although we did get engaged less than a month after I stepped off the plane!)

His letter continues, "BUT at least I still have in-class discussion."

Or do we? College classes are quick to follow college students' tendencies, and college students are on the web, talking in forums and instant messaging boxes and on walls and through pictures and in comments but anything but in person. Colleges are moving the conversation to the web.

So how do you even know you aren't reading a robot's words right now? :^P

However, the chapter I read in the e-book on online forums did have something important to say on the opposite hand: "Studies of individual personality and internet behavior have revealed that introverted students tend to be more able to communicate with others in an online environment than face-to-face." The author makes a pathos-sprinkled point that as an introvert herself, she has taken advantage of the unbound social hierarchy in an online environment which allows for more democratic and even portrayal of ideas.

So see, I don't know. Is it worth the ease of accessibility, the democratization of debate, the interest of the students and the convenience of onlin-id-iness to lose the person-to-person interaction, the lilt of voices, the actual people participating in the conversation?

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Can't we have the hard-as-rock, health-paranoid grit of Grape-Nuts with the fluffy pink marshmallows of Lucky Charms?

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Waiting for the Movie

I read two articles, "One Nation, Under Google, with Wikipedia Access for All: Information Entitlement" by Derrick Clements and "'Some Text': E.B. White's Web of Primary Texts" by Carlie Wallentine. These two made me think about the attitude of access toward different mediums of novels.

My little brother doesn't like to read. As much as it saddens me, he doesn't. When I read a book that amazes me, that keeps me up reading, I haven't given up begging that he give it a try. He always replies, "I'll wait for the movie." When I explain to him that they might not make it into the movie, he scoffs and says, "Then it must not be a very good book."

With a digitalized world, we've come to expect several different mediums from our primary sources. Why read Great Expectations when PBS made it into a movie? Why spend the time on Shakespeare when you can Sparknote it (for free, no less)?

Having access to several different mediums of a primary text is a wonderful thing. I myself enjoy watching different portrayals of Pride and Prejudice from the traditional Regency, to Bollywood, to a modernized vlogger version. But does easier mediums take away from people's decision to access the original? Do too many people expect a movie, and without a movie the book isn't worth a read?

We Are Not Robots: The Importance of Emotion in Academia

I have, for another class this semester, been studying a headache-inducing amount of Plato and Aristotle.  Plato, emotionless logician that he is, argues that art is dangerous and destructive, as it causes humans to feel emotions that distract them from their property duties or "techne."  Aristotle responds in multiple fronts:  first, that artists have their own techne, which he analyzes and critiques; second, that emotions, and more specifically the cathartic release brought on by excellent artistic creations, are a healthy part of human life.

Aristotle, in my opinion, had a much clearer concept of true human nature.

The reason I bring this up is that academia has eschewed passion and emotion in favor of reason.  They do not wish to be moved; they wish to be convinced.

While I believe logic certainly has its place in academic writing, I also believe that choking it of ethos is slowly and inexorably killing it.  Just as Plato would have poets exiled from society, academics seem to want to drive passion from their writing.  This has two negative effects:  first, the author is less interested in his or her writing (When was the last time you, as a student, were excited to write a paper for a class?); second, the audience is bored.

Humans are highly emotional creatures.  Everything we do is driven by emotion first, although we often come up with logical reasons for our actions afterward.  I married my wife because I love her.  The fact that we have similar life goals and complement each other exceptionally well gives logic to our decision, but the reasoning was not the cause.

In like manner, I selected an English major because I am passionate about stories and storytelling.  Yet the longer I remain in academia, the more I want to run screaming from it!  The professors actively try to quash my enthusiasm in an effort to enhance my arguments.  Writing has become a chore, and my reading can rarely be described as pleasurable.

This constant, soul-draining exercise is unsustainable.  College tuition is rocketing upward, while student interest is in rapid decline.   One of two things need to happen for academia to save itself from self-destruction:  either college expenses must dramatically decrease (unlikely, as professors expect nice paychecks and textbook publishers have shown little interest in making their publications available inexpensively), or professors must embrace new methods of teaching that engage and impassion students.

One of the reasons that I find this class intriguing is that Professor Burton has not only allowed, but encouraged our enthusiasm of certain subjects.  This is refreshing and shows an incredible understanding of how students process information.  While electronic media is not something that particularly interests me, I do think that relating Renaissance literature to modern literary movements--blogging, ebooks, and so forth--is a fascinating way to make the past more immediate to us students.  We have been allowed to explore topics of interest to us, we have been encouraged to write from the gut, and we have been forced out of our comfort zone--our of our academic rut--to engage with and learn from one another.

Thank God.

Of eBooks, Fan Fiction, and Scholarly Work

What I'm about to write may incur the wrath of half of the readers and writers on this blog, so I would just like to ask that as you read my comments, hear me out. I was assigned to read over two chapters regarding Fan Fiction, as well as the advantages of the blogosphere in the realms of academics. Each of these writers raises wonderful points. Ashley Nelson in Chapter 2 discusses how Fan Fiction opens up untold possibilities to stories that we know and hold dear to our hearts that are reopened and explored when taken on by other readers. As we seek to disseminate the knowledge we have gleaned from this project, certainly we want to make it available to others and give them the opportunity to take that information and use it to their own advantage. If we are not seeking to make our research more readly avaliable, then really, what is the purpose of the eBook?

Bri Zabriskie concludes the book by devoting a chapter to the importance of using the new modes of digital technology to reach more audiences and make the reading/research process a more colloborative and collective experience than an isolated one. This too is a great goal to have in the class as part of creating this eBook, and we certainly couldn't complete the work we have to accomplish without those efforts. 

All that being said, I think this raises some serious issues within the realm of creating this eBook. Dr. Burton points out that the creation of a typical research paper is isolated and does not allow for a great deal of outside influence or colloboration. He also argues that the minute things turn academic I certainly don't argue with this statement, but I feel that this really goes against everything we are taught to do in academia. Obviously we want people to be thinking about the ideas we present and we don't just want them to be kept to us. However, when it comes to doing research for other classes, I find it difficult to accept that we are all eventually going to be using blogs and eBooks in lieu of the typical term paper. Academia is academia. It will always require the use of scholarly sources and formal papers. If students are unwilling to explore these sources as a means of obtaining information and becoming experts on their desired field, then they don't deserve to be part of the academic community. 

I'm sure people will disagree with some of what I've written, so by all means, add your thoughts to what I've written.

New Medium, New Literacy

The first literary text to be put into electronic form was John Milton's Paradise Lost (shown here in the Project Gutenberg edition that's on my new Kobo Mini eReader). This was originally prepared for the computer in 1964-65 by Dr. Joseph Raben of Queens College, New York. That was no small feat, either. It required some 100,000 IBM paper punch cards that each could hold 80 characters.

Dr. Raben was pioneering the adaptation of old texts for a new medium, one now emerging from its cradle state and becoming a force to be reckoned with. He was like the Renaissance scholar, Erasmus of Rotterdam, or his collaborator, the Venetian printer, Aldus Manutius. Their painstaking scholarship and printing innovations in the early 16th century laid the groundwork for centuries of literary flowering.

As the printed book came into its own, it changed how people read and wrote. It made modern schooling and modern scholarship possible. It set the grounds for how knowledge would work, publicly and privately, for centuries to come. Print was a game-changer.