Putting Knowledge to Work and Letting Information Play: the Center for Digital Discourse and Culture
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Putting Knowledge to Work and Letting Information Play: The Center for Digital Discourse and Culture Edited by Timothy W. Luke and Jeremy Hunsinger Center for Digital Discourse and Culture 531 Major Williams Hall 0130 Virginia Tech Blacksburg, VA, 24061 http://www.cddc.vt.edu Published in the United States First Published December 2009 First Digital Edition First Electronic Edition This publication is in copyright. You can freely distribute or reproduce this electronic copy for noncommercial purposes. All other rights in regard to this electronic copy revert to the individual authors of the individual chapters. ISBN: 978-1-933217-00-0 © Center for Digital Discourse and Culture 2009 2 Table of Contents: Introduc3on 6 Timothy W. Luke and Jeremy Hunsinger The Book Unbound: Reconsidering One-Dimensionality in the Internet Age 24 Ben Agger Fluid Notes on Liquid Books 33 Gary Hall What Can Technology Teach Us about Texts? (and Texts about Technology?) 54 Jean-Claude Guédon Open Works, Open Cultures, and Open Learning Systems 76 Michael A. Peters Textscapes and Landscapes: A SeSler Poet Goes On-Line 99 Brian Opie ReWeaving the World: The Web as Digital Discourse and Culture 116 Timothy W. Luke Electronic Theses and Disserta3ons: Progress, Issues, and Prospects 126 Edward A. Fox, Gail McMillan, and Venkat Srinivasan From gunny sacks to maSress vine: notes on Douglas Engelbart, Tim O’Reilly, and the natural World 149 Sue Thomas The Pleasures of Collabora3on 158 Thom Swiss Info-Ci3zens: Democracy, Exper3se and OWnership in European Research Funding 160 Timothy W. Luke and Jeremy Hunsinger The New River: Collected Editors’ Notes 177 Ed Falco, et. al. 3 On the Origins of the Cute as a Dominant Aesthe3c Category in Digital Culture. 212 Dylan E. Wikower Culture, Media, Globaliza3on 230 Mark Poster Barack Obama and Celebrity Spectacle 232 Douglas Kellner A Short History of the Center for Digital Discourse and Culture 262 Jeremy Hunsinger Digital Research and Tenure & Promo3on in Colleges of Arts and Sciences: A Thought Piece 271 Theodore R. Schatzki 4 Contributors Ben Agger is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for Theory at the University of Texas at Arlington, USA. Ed Falco is Professor of English and Director of Crea3ve Wri3ng at Virginia Polytechnic Ins3tute and State University, USA. EdWard A. Fox is Professor of Computer Science at Virginia Polytechnic Ins3tute and State University, USA. Jean-Claude Guédon is Professor of Compara3ve Literature at the Université de Montréal, Canada. Gary Hall is Professor of Media and Performing Arts in the School of Art and Design at Coventry University, UK. Jeremy Hunsinger is Co-director of the Center for Digital Discourse and Culture and Instructor of Poli3cal Science at Virginia Polytechnic Ins3tute and State University, USA. Douglas Kellner is George F. Kneller Philosophy of Educa3on Chair at Graduate School of Educa3on & Informa3on Studies, University of California Los Angeles, USA. Timothy W. Luke is University Dis3nguished Professor of Poli3cal Science and Co-director of the Center for Digital Discourse and Culture at Virginia Polytechnic Ins3tute and State University, USA. Gail McMillan is Professor at University Libraries and Director of the Digital Library and Archives at Virginia Polytechnic Ins3tute and State University, USA. Brian Opie is Senior Lecturer in the School of English Film Theatre and Media Studies at Victoria University of Wellington in NeW Zealand. Michael A. Peters is Professor, Educa3onal Policy Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, USA and Adjunct Professor, School of Fine Arts, Royal Melbourne Ins3tute of Technology, Australia. Mark Poster is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California, Irvine, USA. Theodore R. Schatzki is Professor of Philosophy and Associate Dean of Faculty at the University of Kentucky, USA Venkat Srinivasan is a doctoral student in Computer Science at Virginia Polytechnic Ins3tute and State University, USA. Thomas SWiss is Professor of Culture and Teaching at University of Minnesota, USA. Sue Thomas is Professor of NeW Media at De Moniort University, UK. Dylan E. WiSkoWer is Lecturer in Philosophy at Coastal Carolina University, USA 5 Introduction Timothy W. Luke and Jeremy Hunsinger This group of cri3cal, historical, and technical assessments of digital discourse and culture is assembled to commemorate the creaon of Virginia Tech’s Center for Digital Discourse and Culture (CDDC) a decade ago. Organized in the College of Arts and Sciences, two college faculty members--Len Haiield in the Department of English and Timothy W. Luke in the Department of Poli3cal Science--began operang the CDDC With Jeremy Hunsinger, who later pursued and completed his Doctorate in the Science and Technology Studies (STS) program. Haiield Was a co-founder of the English Department’s Center for Applied Technology in the Humani3es (CATH), and Luke Was the author of a 1994 white paper for the College of Arts and Sciences calling for the creaon of a neW en3ty, namely, “Cyberschool,” at Virginia Tech to design, manage, organize, and then teach Wholly online undergraduate and graduate courses by 1995. During 1996, a handful of such courses were being offered, and the prac3cal difficules raised by presenng such classes over the Internet Within an educa3onal ins3tu3on en3rely grounded upon print-based, tradi3on-bound, and engineering-biased modes of daily operaon soon became very problemac. In 1996, a student in California or Greece could take a Cyberschool class, but they had to first travel to Blacksburg, fill out paper forms, and then write a personal check for tui3on and fees. In response, and With the support of Instruc3onal Technologies and the College of Arts and Sciences, Cyberschool divided into two smaller groups--Cyberschool I, coordinated by Luke to push for ins3tu3onal innovaon and reform, and Cyberschool II, coordinated by Haiield to develop neW technical responses for the challenges of online teaching (Couples & Luke, 1998; Luke, 2001). Ed Fox in the College’s Department of Computer Science also had been working separately With the Graduate School and University Libraries to implement an electronic thesis and dissertaon (ETD) requirement for several years. Once he joined the Cyberschool group, faculty members’ discussions occasionally turned to the challenges of scholarly communica3on and archiving knoWledge online. Working off of the intersecon of these and other groups on campus, University President Paul Torgersen approved Virginia Tech’s pioneering implementaon of a mandatory electronic thesis and dissertaon (ETD) requirement in 1997 (Torgersen, 1998). Caught on the cusp of conflict between exis3ng codex books and print quarterly journals produced on paper versus untested e-books and pixel-borne online publicaons, many academics at Virginia Tech wavered. In this context, the ETD experiment Was quite a radical experiment (see Appendix A). Changing the media used in the producon, consump3on, accumula3on, and circulaon of scholarship created many anxie3es about the academy’s exis3ng cultural prac3ces for valorizing scholarly ac3vity as well as the organiza3onal logiscs of maintaining its tradi3onal disciplinary norms, frameWorks, and archives. As a university Without a tradi3onal book publishing press, and lacking much experience With producing academic journals on campus, the 6 stage-skipping poten3ali3es of creang a “digital press” for Virginia Tech seemed quite promising in 1996 and 1997 (Haiield & Luke, 1997) for the Cyberschool (Luke 2007,p. 653-671). Like the Cyberschool group itself, which pushed from Within the College of Arts and Sciences for teaching totally online classes and gran3ng en3rely online degrees (Luke, 2004, p. 75-77), the idea of a wholly online digital press Was a bit radical, especially in the mid-1990s when daily web broWsing Was neither common nor easy (see Appendix B). An opportunity to serve as a game-changing standard-seSer Was put before the University administra3on, which Was then basically ignored due to very pedestrian concerns (Luke, 2002, p. 249-281). At root, the University’s administrators expressed many insecuries about really being first at anything, even though it Was an ins3tu3on that prided itself in the 1990s for being all about “Pung KnoWledge to Work.” Anxie3es, which were ed to fearing financial success, doubng any “technological iniaves” not rooted in the College of Engineering, and quesoning the real staying- poWer of digital discourse over print media, ruled the day. At the same me, the University Libraries’ own Scholarly Publica3ons Project, and then later its Digital Library and Archives Division, Was backing the ETD project along With its own limited efforts to digize a feW important small, unprofitable scholarly publicaons and older, out-of-print serials. With all of these different players on the field, each oen ended up playing their own game, but in accordance With the restric3ve rules set by the University’s administra3on. Ironically, these rules, once again, related to its fears of profit, success, or even being first. The business model for a Virginia Tech Digital Press, for example, proposed creang digital versions of print books and journals for sale. Yet, the University’s administra3on worried at the me, “what if they sold?” Should they sell, then pressure would build to bring out more 3tles. More 3tles, more sales, more groWth could lead to neW sources of income, but that development would require greater investments in staff, space, and support to ramp up producon