[Renewals: Refiguring University English in the 21st Century

After a myriad of welcomes to the conference (including Elaine Showalter who regaled us with humorous epithets of her time at the MLA), Alan Liu presented his vision of “Knowledge 2.0: The University and Web 2.0."

Here are some bits that I managed to jot down in between being enthralled by Alan's enthusiasm:

1) Technology effects knowledge and dissemination of subject

2) Students become interested in creating because of how it is pitched to them - Alan suggested they write to impress him and their friends

3) Wikipedia is not just the first resource used by students but the last. Thus there is an instability of knowledge base

4) How do you police a "new world" when world is full of multiple authorities? Now there is no "natural" locus for authority.

5) What is a "good" policy for governing knowledge rather than a "best" policy = a satisficing knowledge

6) Pedagogical implications: how to adapt knowledge discourse to accomodate others (think of the different kinds of students who you might have in your classes)

7) Socrates in Plato's Phaedrus as a critique of "new" media corresponds to today's "anxiety." Critique of new media is as old as its romance

"The fact is that this invention will produce forgetfulness in the souls of those who have learned it. They will not need to exercise their memories, being able to rely on what is written, calling things to mind no longer from within themselves by their own unaided powers, but under the stimulus of external marks that are alien to themselves. So it's not a recipe for memory, but for reminding, that you have discovered." (68)