Alexander on Multiple Literacies

Alexander, Bryan. 2008. “Web 2.0 and Emergent Multiliteracies.” Theory Into Practice.  47, no. 2:150-160. ISSN 00405841. Although it already seems dated (was 2008 really that long ago?), this article presents a solid overview of the many ways in which students write and create online – their “multiple literacies” as the title suggests. In the epigraph, […]

Drucker on Humanistic Theory and Digital Scholarship

Drucker, Johanna. Humanistic Theory and Digital Scholarship. Debates in Digital Humanities. Matt Gold ed. U of Minnesota P. 2012. This contribution by Johanna Drucker opens with two very poignant questions for the dh world: 1) “are [humanists] actually doing anything different or just extending the activities that have always been their core concerns, enabled by […]

Gardiner and Musto on The Electronic Book

Gardiner, Eileen and Ronald G. Musto. “The Electronic Book.” The Oxford Companion to the Book. Michael F. Suarez, S.J. and H. R. Woudhusyen, eds. Vol. 1. Oxford UP. Web. In defining the e-book, Gardiner and Musto write “The e-book is a young medium and its definition is a work in progress, emerging from the history […]

Nunberg on The Information Age

Nunberg, Geoffrey. “Farewell to the Information Age.” From The Future of the Book. U of California P, 1996. I agree with Nunberg’s founding claim here: discussions concerning the future of the book are plagued by “misapprehensions.” The general public, spurred on by journals and critics, seem convinced that new media technologies are causing the death […]

Turkle on Life on the Screen

Turkle, Sherry. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. Simon and Schuster (Sept. 1997): NY, NY. http://www.amazon.com/Life-Screen-Identity-Age-Internet/dp/0684833484 Are you a Mac or a PC? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5z0Ia5jDt4 Besides the brilliantly clever advertising campaign Apple launched asking this very question (with the costs passed directly to the customer), this question has a complicated history […]

Rietje van Vliet on “Print and Public in Europe 1600-1800”

Eliot, Simon, and Jonathan Rose, eds. A Companion to the History of the Book. Oxford/Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007. Z4 C73 2007; ISBN 978-1-4051-2765-3. The rise of the print industry: This chapter is framed by the claim that while bookstores – with title page advertisements on the windows and shelves full of unbound books (in folio, […]

Eliot and Rose on “North America and Transatlantic Book Culture to 1800”

Eliot, Simon, and Jonathan Rose, eds. A Companion to the History of the Book. Oxford/Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007. Z4 C73 2007; ISBN 978-1-4051-2765-3. “North America and Transatlantic Book Culture to 1800” Shortly after Gutenberg invented the printing press with movable type, the discovery of America was documented through this technology. For instance arguably the most […]

Johns on Piracy

Johns, Adrian. Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates. U of Chicago P: 2009. Part 1: To be continued in a future post… The rise of piracy in the seventeenth century correlates with the ability to print – raising important questions about the nature of knowledge: can knowledge be authored, owned, and stolen? […]

Hayles on Cybernetics

Hayles, N. Katherine. “Cybernetics.” Mitchell, W. J. T. and Mark B. N. Hansen, eds. Critical Terms for Media Studies. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 2010.  146-156. In this article Hayles suggests that media can be understood through materiality, technology, semiotics, and social contexts. The article examines these aspects of media through systems theory – exploring […]