Me and My Cyborg

For my classes, I've been thinking about the history of computers and writing as a subfield in academia, and about my relationship/expertise/lack of expertise in the subfield. I recently read James Inman's book Computers and Writing: The Cyborg Era with my graduate students. I met Inman when I was a graduate student at TCU. But I digress . . .

Inman aserts that the history--and in fact the future--of computers and writing can be defined by the figure of the cyborg (as Donna Haraway defines it). Interwoven with his argument, he presents one page quotes from the people who make up the computers and writing community.

The “Community Voices” entry that sticks with me the most is Cynthia Jeney’s (CJ); she says:

Too many of us have been sucked into the Elbovian/Rosean morass of the nurturing composition teacher; we’re handholding and guiding our students like lambs into the humming box, rather than assuming our ancient duty as fearless facilitators of symbolic action mayhem. The transcontinental neural net is out there, its nodes practically bleeding with the propinquity of global humanity and we show them http://stuffyoucanuseforatermpaper.com.

The best ideas are on the fringes, the best people are lobbing theoretical neutron bombs at the status quo, the best studies are way outside the disciplines of composition and pedagogy, the best student writers in our classes see a lot of “writing with technology” lessons for what they are—a sellout (or buy-in?) to the companies who market the gadgets and the containers to out admins and IT directors. (128)

I have about 22 thoughts bouncing around in my head in response to CJ’s words, but let me calm down and get three of them out there (let me also note, that most of my response to CJ is something like, “Right on, sister!”).

One of my reactions is historical/informative: she refers to “our ancient duty.” Here I think she is talking about rhetoric in western antiquity (or what many refer to as “Classical Rhetoric,” by which they usually mean Greek and Roman and exclude studies of Chinese and especially Arabic rhetoric, which were thriving in what we call “classical times.”). I think she is referring to folks like Gorgias and Protagoras and Aspasia (gasp, a woman!) and Isocrates – folks we refer to as “The Sophists,” who used their incredible intellects and silver tongues to challenge the status quo and teach the youth to question everything. Sophists argued that (Plato’s) search for absolute truth was bankrupt because truth was socially constructed, and to prove their point, they often argued both sides of an issue equally brilliantly and fervently. Inman kind of resurrects this notion when he speaks of “cyborg responsibility” in the last chapter. He urges us, for example, “to find value in arguments for and against any project or initiative” (276). Along these lines, I am especially keen on finding ways to exist within the institution, but not become totally co-opted by it.

My second thought is about CJ’s claim that the real action is happening at the margins, out of “composition and rhetoric,” and, as Kathleen Blake Yancey claims, often out of the academy. One person outside of academia who seems to be “lobbing theoretical neutron bombs at the status quo” is a dude named Howard Rheingold – check out his smart mobs movement and all the other stuff he’s into on his website http://www.rheingold.com

And finally, since reading CJ’s words on page 128, I kept waiting for Inman to address them head-on. Prior to Chapter 5, he seems to fuss around the edges of her ideas with the notion of inclusiveness, but it was not until page 213 that I knew Inman was on board. In the middle of page 213, and I realized that as a teacher, Inman and I are on the same page. As I read the following passage, I heard echoes of my own teaching philosophy and saw a conception of teaching with computers that I feel confident about fitting into. (Allow me one more aside, I feel very new to the field and have the nagging sense that I am woefully under-informed but that I just don’t fully realize it). Inman writes,

Although it would be naïve to assume that a neutral model of education exists, the more serious wrongdoing is failing to examine pedagogies implemented without attention to the critical implications of their presence. Any critical pedagogy that does not lead to the empowerment of its associated learners has not, finally, been successful[.]

I agree whole-heartedly. It made me feel confident as a computer & writing wanna-be to come across a claim that I fully understand and have thought and written about extensively. Inman goes on to say that the definition of “good teaching” (more or less) that he presents above is a “strict, but necessary” standard (213). Most visibly I have lived up to this standard by infusing service-learning into my curriculum. I have thought a lot (but not done much with) the link between computers & writing and service-learning. I need to push my thinking in that direction. I’ll end my post with a few words from Clancy Ratliff (who has a very cool blog):

Sometimes I wish we called this discipline “Writing and Computers” instead of the other way around. I worry about what I’ve seen as the Computers and Writing community’s getting, at times, enraptured with concepts such as multimodality, hypertextuality, and heteroglossia, and not foregrounding computers and the Internet in their militaristic, capitalistic, patriarchal origins—and, for that matter, in their present and future which corporations are commanding. [. . .] I want to help make the Internet as much as possible a site for activism and social change, and I am always glad to hear about teachers who combine technology with service learning pedagogy [.] 188

So, I’m dreaming up ways she’ll be glad to hear of me!