Date: Fri, 25 Nov 1994 17:21:46
Sender: Creative Writing in Education for Teachers and Students
(CREWRT-L@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu)
From: Corina Schmelkes (CIDET100@BESTIT.DGIT.SEIT.MX)
Subject: Re: content
I fully agree. This discussion group should be more
academic. corina
To which Eric replied . . .
Date: Sun, 27 Nov 1994 10:37:02 -0500
Sender: Creative Writing in Education for Teachers and Students
(CREWRT-L@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu)
From: Eric Crump (c509379@showme.missouri.edu)
Thanks for the suggestion, Corina.
There are things to be learned here about the ways in which communities
form with the aid of different media. The differences between print and
net. There are things to be learned about changing cultural conditions
and how media affect them: academic traditions and how they are being
complicated, even rewritten, in netland.
For instance, I thought
Liz did as good a job as possibly could be done
capturing the spirit of this list, its functions, its flavor. Yet a
number of people who subscribed based on her description have expressed
disappointment. The expectations they formed based on a print description
could not match the real thing. Liz, whether she knew it or not, was
engaged in an impossible task. When the Chronicle committed her words
to print they froze in time. CREWRT-L, though, was a moving target. It
kept moving as she wrote. It kept moving as the presses rolled. It keeps
moving now, putting ever more distance between the snapshot in print and
the ever-evolving conversation here.
The article was obsolete before she finished it, and it gets more
obsolete every minute. But that's not her fault. It's a function of the
relationship between two very different media. And it's a function of the
effect of the article itself, which was a rock thrown into this little
pond, causing ripples of unpredictable amplitude. An impossible job. Just
try describing something accurately that is going to be changed by the
description itself.
Wheee!
Perhaps she should have placed a warning at the end of the piece: Anyone
who uses a print source to launch themselves into cyberspace should
expect to have their expectations violated. Go forth with eyes and hearts
open. Be prepared to be nimble. Be prepared to be disappointed and
surprised. Joy and anguish await you.
It's a lot like life, eh?
The cultural tension at work here is mighty interesting, too. As Brian
suggests: What is academic? Which 'academic' are we talking about? The
article that attracted so many new people was printed in a publication
that serves as a part of the traditional print-based academic culture's
infrastructure. What the Chronicle readers assume to be academic
is one thing, a fairly particular definition of the word, referring to
the academic tradition based on the 19th century model of scholarship
that still clings tenaciously to cultural dominance (in spite of the
fact that the world has gone and changed radically around it).
This list started as an academic venture rooted in the same basic
humanistic tradition. It was supposed to be a place where teachers and
students who care about creative writing as an academic endeavor could
discuss the shape and future of its pedagogy, to make connections with
pedagogical practices of other disciplines (particularly composition and
rhetoric) and to develop specific new practices and ideas that could be
applied in classrooms.
We stuck to that topic for about a month, I think.
We've learned quite a bit about what 'academic' means in cyberspace by
hanging out here. I don't think CREWRT-L is any less academic than it
was at the start. It is differently academic, but academic nevertheless.
If nothing else, it remains and will remain academic as long as the
great majority of its participants are academics, engaged in academic
pursuits and ensconced in academic institutions.
Gee, maybe if I say the word enough, people will start believing it :)
The main thing we introduce here that cannot find space in traditional
academic venues is play. It's the one thing that is missing from the
print academic world that we all desperately need if we want to be
productive and creative in our work. The net is reputed to be a
liberatory space, a place where democracy can flourish anew, etc. etc.
blah blah blah. I dunno about all the idealistic stuff, but I do know
that the most liberating aspect of this list (and others) is the fact
that they provide space for us to explore the intertwingling of
seriousness and play, for the benefit of both. For the benefit of us.
I don't need to list examples. You see dozens every day on this list.
And if you look closely, you'll notice that the parodies, the verse,
the personal notes, the gossip, the political arguments, are all
interspersed with serious business. Richard Lanham has said that
"interactivity
compromises solemnity" Yes! and all that Stuff
we see here does a lovely job taking the deadly seriousness out of
academic issues and concerns, lets us absorb them into our lives (as
opposed to segregating them as 'work' rather than 'leisure').
You might say (ok, I will say) that the new playful semi-irreverent
banter found on this list will save academia from its own ponderous
weight. Without the net, without lists like this, the academy will sink
into oblivion. Soon.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* Eric Crump
* WLERIC@showme.missouri.edu *and* http://www.missouri.edu/~wleric
* "We have come to regard print as so inevitable that we have
* ceased to notice its extraordinary stylization. Print, after
* all, is a trickery, too, not a historical inevitability."
* --Richard Lanham