Last night, I was finally able to view Apple’s recent education event from New York City. Yes, I had read about their announcements and downloaded iBooks Author and the new iTunes U, but hadn’t realized just how potentially game-changing these new tools are for what I do.
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Updates
A large chunk of my holiday was spent in geek mode. Yes, I partook of holiday spirits, exercised a bit, and relaxed — but I needed to do some pretty significant updates to some outdated servers that I’m responsible for on campus. This is a record of what I did to breathe new life into my obsolete equipment.
Our Gadget Complicity
Last night’s This American Life featured a show about the working conditions in China that are a direct consequence of our — the West’s — need for gadgets. And while one company alone is not to blame, this show examines Apple’s relationship with Foxconn.
The Web v. the Book
When I spoke at the Norman Mailer Society Conference in 2005, I was asked to discuss the position of literature and English Studies at the beginning of the twenty-first century, how the work of Norman Mailer fit into these cultural and intellectual trends, and recommend ways that the Society might continue to flourish in a still incunabular information age.
The Novel and the Order
Arguably, the dominant form of literature in the twentieth century was prose fiction, of which the novel was a titan, if not a god. Indeed, there is something god-like about the novel and its relation to western civilization’s sense of identity and order.
A Crisis of Interpretation
After September 11, 2001, the United States has arguably entered a continuum characterized by the capitalist drive to just do it. This is a zeitgeist that emphasizes action over thought — movement over contemplation. A trend toward anti-intellectualism had been growing since the last century, and the fact of terrorism seems to have been the final blow, toppling American thoughtfulness along with the twin towers.
Growing Up Digital (Redux)
I received my first computer when I graduated from high school: an Eagle PC. Instead of getting what I really wanted — an Apple Macintosh — I had to settle for a generic IBM clone.