Robert's Respnse

[Robert Greco]

#349

I’m particularly interested in Hayles’s idea that “Without abandoning print literacy, Comparative Media Studies enriches it through judicious comparison with other media, so that print is no longer the default mode into which one falls without much thought about alternatives but rather an informed choice made with full awareness of its possibilities and limitations.” I like this somewhat Utopian vision, and I appreciate the way in which it reveals the naturalized state of print in academic culture. So, my next thought turns to the way in which this can take root in existing academic structures. Certainly, in places like the GC where clear paths for digital scholarship and pedagogy exist, digital projects have obtained a reasonable degree of value, but I fear that much of academic humanities remains firmly connected to the print tradition and to traditional modes of publication. In some places, alternative publication media, like academic blogs, have begun to gain currency in some institutions, but this change has been slow in most places. So, my questions are: How do we advance the cause of expanding the acceptance of a wider array of digital technologies? How do we avoid the tendency to accept anything digital as valuable? I’ve seen many DH projects that strike out new and important space, but I’ve also seen work that does little to advance scholarship, but it attracts attention for its mere digitality. 
 
I’m very interested in the ways in which a Comparative Media Studies approach can improve the ways in which we teach Rhetoric. I’m currently teaching a second semester English course designed to introduce students to Rhetoric and to help them to use their newly developed rhetorical skills to analyze, and hopefully understand and produce, works from across the disciplines. Hayles’s comments that “On a pedagogical level, Comparative Media Studies implies course designs that strive to break the transparency of print and denaturalize it by comparing it with other media forms.” Just today, I was talking to my students about the power of culture to naturalize constructed phenomena, an idea I think is important when conducting rhetorical analyses that pull back the curtain of assumption. In this way denaturalization of print can provide a powerful tool to advance students’ rhetorical awareness and ability. Just a thought, but one worth exploring to my mind. 

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