digital rhetoric and professional communication
http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436105 Without going into too much depth about it, I write ~30K words in May and June. It wasn't fun. No one told you writing was fun, right? I mean, generally speaking we don't get paid for doing things that are fun. Or as Julius Erving once said ‘Being a professional is doing the things... Continue Reading →
Though there are some ongoing conversations about the notion of a post-digital world (including Justin Hodgson's Post Digital Rhetoric and the New Aesthetic and Mike Flatt's discussion of post-digital poetics), I'm starting here with the mildly disturbing corporate speak of Accenture on how to be competitive in the post-digital world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=173&v=dpaw_ZAHZ-Q Accenture identifies five elements... Continue Reading →
There's a NY Times article by Nellie Bowles doing the rounds with the titular observation that "Human Contact is Now a Luxury Good." It focuses on both old and young: the senior citizen with a virtual pet companion; the kids taught by apps on tablets and laptops. And it notes that the wealthy eschew screens... Continue Reading →
Here's the text and videos used in my presentation in case you weren't inclined to drag yourself over here at 8am. Rhetoric and composition has been talking about video for decades—as a teaching tool, an object of study, and a medium of scholarly and student composing. More than 15 years ago, Dan Anderson was discussing... Continue Reading →
So I'm in the midst again of another well-intentioned effort to communicate the value of liberal arts (specifically English) majors and was introduced to this report, "Robot Ready: Human+Skills for the Future of Work," by the Strada Institute for the Future of Work and ESMI, which is a firm involved in economic modeling. I want... Continue Reading →
After all, who can resist an Elton John reference? Well, I'm in the midst of book revisions (and there was much rejoicing). I'm thinking back--and perhaps modifying--a notion I had a few years ago: minimal rhetoric. I'm thinking "tiny" rather than "minimal." Maybe both. My attraction to "tiny" is from the line in A Thousand Plateaus that has stuck... Continue Reading →
In The Chronicle of Higher Education, Jonathon Kramnick offers an analysis of the contemporary academic job market in English in comparison with its state 20 years ago (coincidentally when I was first on the job market). This can be put in the context of statistics on the awarding of phds from the NSF. This chart shows... Continue Reading →
The moral of this story is probably that some Chronicle of Higher Ed clickbait articles are too absurd to pass by, in this case, Timothy Aubry's "Should Studying Literature be Fun?" I find this to be such a bizarre question and ultimately I'm unsure what it has to do with the concerns of the article itself.... Continue Reading →
Wired published an article a few days back based on this research from the journal Cognition. As the Wired article's title suggests, if you want to be resistant to fake news then "don't be lazy." Basically this particular study indicates that people who exhibit critical thinking skills are more resistant to fake news than those who do not, regardless of... Continue Reading →
