There are several things in this LONG article that I found interesting, but most of all was the idea of the philosophical, cultural and practical battles raging within the discipline of English studies.
As I said in our last class when we were discussing the English Downfall video, I was not really aware that the consideration of how digital literacies should be incorporated into English studies was such a sore and combustible subject. Some of the lines in Stroupe's article drive the point home for me once again. In one section, "words," representing the old guard are described as "iconographically dead weight carried along on the energy of the images and design." In another section, someone refers to verbal literacy as being "buried under an amalgamation of literacies." And my favorite is the hand-wringing of those who ask what future can be expected for English majors?
I have a bit of a split personality on these issues. I do believe it is a sin for educators to produce students who cannot compete in the "real world." When I see college students and graduates who are not equipped with the tools needed to function in the professional world. At the most basic level, these tools are verbal and writing skills, as well as social and behavioral skills. In today's economy, I think it is impossible not to add computer and digital literacy skills to the list as well.
BUT... and this is a big BUT... I see digital literacy as not just the province of the English Department. Digital literacy should be a component of ALL school subjects, be it chemistry, math, foreign language, biology, literature or anything else. So for me, the argument is not that English should visualize itself, but that American education as a whole should visualize or digitize itself.
At one point in the article, Stroupe says "to suggest that English Studies should visualize itself is to argue that those at the prestigious center follow the lead of its more marginalized or controversial wings: technical communication, cultural studies, film and popular culture." To make this argument is groundless. There is room for all of those disciplines, but they don't have to exist as one, single discipline.
For me, that would be like making the argument one day that because cloning or in vitro fertilization have become the norm, biology classes should not spend time teaching students about natural conception and reproduction. Or saying because African American students in low-income backgrounds are more likely to use slang, all classes should be taught in Ebonics.
Disciplines like English do need to modernize and stay current and relevant, but not to the exclusion of core competencies. There is a way to modernize without radicalizing and it seems to me that some of the academic arguments for "visualizing English" are tipping towards radicalization at the expense of core competencies.
I think I am old-school and still want to see the "substance" before the "sizzle." Going back to the point made in the Petersen article, I don't care what the design and layout look like if the content is not there.
David Siegel's definition of a "new work paradigm" that depends less on individual writers or collaborators producing well-wrought verbal text and more on coordination of a team of technical, visual and verbal discourses leaves me cold. While I agree that there has been a shift beyond the place where only the words matter, the new paradigm focusing on the team only works when the foundation on which the team builds is solid.
I do think a lot of the sciences have embraced digital technology. I have the sense that it's English that's lagged behind, but I could be wrong. Your claim that Stroupe's argument: "to suggest that English Studies should visualize itself is to argue that those at the prestigious center follow the lead of its more marginalized or controversial wings: technical communication, cultural studies, film and popular culture," has no grounds is hard for me to follow. For most people in the various areas of English studies, we are one discipline; we are treated, and funded, as one academic unit. Recently, at my university, the library spent $200,000 for access to one database of 18th century texts (texts from around the world have been scanned, put online, and made available in an unprecedented way). This is wonderful, of course, for the one professor that teaches in that area, and for the 25 students in the one class a year who take that class. Is this what you mean when you say "core competencies"? Is there something inherently important about this particular take on English studies? In the meantime, I haven't been able to get a subscription to a journal that I use regularly (Computers and Composition) because it represents "on-going costs." It costs perhaps $100 a year. Lots is going on here, of course; these decisions were not made by the English department, after all. But this event does represent for me the university's priorities. I think Stroupe's point is that you can't pay more attention to the marginalized areas of the department unless you pay less attention to the prestigious center; there just isn't enough money. And, as long as the literature faculty remain in the majority in a department, they are likely to continue to vote in the interest of their own area.
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