The other day I was invited to participate in a faculty “focus group” for a College committee charged with studying means to create “effective, efficient and cost effective functioning.” The committee is interested in new faculty’s perspectives on ways to improve communication and collaboration among departments. I suppose I have a perverse interest in college […]
English studies stands on the cusp of significant changes. For nearly two decades there has been talk of a “crisis” in the discipline. It begins, I suppose, with a questioning of the literary canon of “dead white guys,” moves through the implications of postmodern philosophy and the appearance of personal computing and onto the contemporary […]
My colleague, David Franke, has asked me to visit his class on the “Evolution of Writing” to discuss the question of whether new media can be a site of “serious” discourse. The class has recently finished reading Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, which argues the opposing position–that new media can entertain but cannot replace “serious” […]
As noted on the summer schedule, I will be teaching this course during the second summer session, MW 5:30-9:30, from June 28th-July 30th. The course will focus on cyberpunk literature. The genre of cyberpunk develops from the literary traditions of gothic, detective, and science fiction and h as been popularized in contemporary movies such as […]
As you might know, today is the 10th anniversity of Kurt Cobain’s suicide. I mention it, as his life and death have significant resonance for me, as they likely do for many people of that generation. Today, coincidentally or not, I am finishing discussion of Internet Invention, my second semester teaching this book. I am […]
Scholars’ Day is coming up at SUNY-Cortland, a college-wide faculty-undergraduate conference, and I will be presenting with students in the clock.speed learning community. I think I’ve figured out what I want to say about the experience: what clock.speed can teach us about the challenges of new media curriculum, and learning communities as well. It’s lessons […]
In my graduate course last night, we were discussing the idea of a particular subjective state, what you might call being “in the zone.” This is generally a sports metaphor, but we were thinking more broadly of an energetic, creative-cognitive state where your ideas are flowing, and taking you places. After class, Dean, one of […]
Recently in The Chronicle of Higher Education debate has emerged concerning “intellectual diversity.” This issue was raised in an advertisement by a student group, the Duke Conservative Union, which questioned what they perceived as a “liberal bias” among faculty. Is it the case that academics are more politically liberal than the American population? And if […]
I’ve been away from this blog for sometime. I suppose I’ve been too busy completing my book manuscript, which is now finally finished (and there was much rejoicing, “yeah!”). Now the semester has returned, and I am teaching three very different courses: a general education course in literature, a new media course in a learning […]
And so this is how I see the “writing process” … or at least a shorthand version. I would start with a two part process with cultural-material forces on one side (including, for example, interpellation, technologies, language, discourse communities, history, etc.) and embodied forces on the other (including bodily functions, memory, unconscious processes, desires and […]
