CAC Connections: Idealism, Pragmatism, and Skepticism
CAC Connections introduces in its first e-dition with a hypertext that addresses the ways the Internet and hypermedia are changing our conceptions of "writing" in "writing across the curriculum." In Idealism, Pragmatism, and Skepticism in 'Computers and Writing' at the Fin de Siècle, Dene Grigar and John Barber expand our understanding of computer-mediated communication throughout the curriculum. Connections are the key for their concept in their collaborative triple hypertext, which records and reflects on and intertwines – sequentially, interactively, and randomly – the two Town Hall meetings and conversations at the 1999 Computers and Writing Conference in Rapid City, South Dakota. In their introduction, they explain their goal:
Why three choices, you may wonder? The answer is multivalent and multivocal: To reflect the past, present, and future times; to make connections between these time periods in relation to the three philosophies – that is, Idealism, Pragmatism, and Skepticism – driving our presenters' comments about the field of Computers and Writing; and to provide multiple, diverse, and complex retellings of the same event--that is, the Computers and Writing 1999 Town Hall Meetings – within these temporal and philosophical contexts.
Among the messages at the town halls was a call to recognize the ways that the field of computers and writing already is reaching out to and connecting with other disciplines. Illustrating and expanding these connections are the three webtexts in Idealism, Pragmatism, and Skepticism, which reflect the variety of representations of literacy in our computer culture:
- the linear and sequential version will be most approachable for readers who prefer the familiar format of print;
- the interactive version presents concepts for readers to pursue according to their own interests, allowing readers to hold four ideas in view at the same time and to change the texts that display in order to see them in different relationships to each other; and
- randomly generated text brings the positions of the Town Hall panelists and the comments of the moderators to the reader in a format similar to the used book table at a flea market: everything is a book but the reason for a how-to on herb gardening to precede a dissertation on quarks is not clear nor even purposeful but may take on meaning from the proximity and from the reader's response.
In her moderator's comments on Town Hall 1, Grigar identifies three issues in the positions of the panelists: "loss of ideological innocence, ways to expand our identities, and time to dream and imagine." Collectively, she says, these issues represent "both fear and hope in the face of the many changes taking place in our universities and communities and exemplify a kind of self-reflection--an activity necessary, perhaps, to our growth and progress as scholars and as a field." And in his moderator's comments on Town Hall 2, Barber ends his summation with a striking quotation from a panelist: "Stop whining and take over the university." Readers will recognize here loss of innocence, growing awareness, expansion of identities, and maybe even some dreaming and imagining. More than a recapitulation of the Town Halls, then, Idealism, Pragmatism, and Skepticism asks us to reimagine who "we" in computers and writing "are" and "who" we are "becoming."
CAC Connections
Publication Information: Reiss, Donna. (2000). CAC Connections: Idealism, Pragmatism, and Skepticism. Academic.Writing. http://wac.colostate.edu/aw/connections/connections1a.htm
Publication Date: March 26, 2000
Contact Information:
Donna Reiss' Home Page: http://www.wordsworth2.net/
Donna Reiss' Email: dreiss@wordsworth2.net
Copyright © 2000 Academic.Writing.