Computers and Writing The Cyborg Era Computers and Writing The Cyborg Era James A. Inman University of South Florida LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS 2004 Mahwah, New Jersey London This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Copyright © 2004 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by photostat, microfilm, retrieval system, or any other means, without prior written permission of the publisher. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers 10 Industrial Avenue Mahwah, NJ 07430 Cover design by Kathryn Houghtaling Lacey Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Inman, James A. Computers and writing : the cyborg era / James A. Inman p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 0–8058–4160–1 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0–8058–4161–X (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. English language—Rhetoric—Study and teaching—Data processing. 2. English language—Rhetoric—Study and teaching—Computer network resources. 3. English language—Rhetoric—Computer-assisted instruction. 4. Report writing—Study and teaching—Data processing. 5. Report writing— Computer-assisted instruction. 6. Report writing—Computer network resources. I. Title. PE1404 .I46 2003 808'.042'0285—dc21 2002192536 ISBN 1-4106-0999-5 Master e-book ISBN Contents Foreword vii Anne Ruggles Gere Preface ix 1 Defining Computers and Writing:Defining the Cyborg Era 1 Community Voices 27 2 Computers and Writing From 1960 to 1979:Cyborg History 59 Community Voices 73 3 Recasting Canonized Computers and Writing Scholarship, 107 1979–2000: Cyborg Narratives Community Voices 125 4 Integrated Meaning-Making Systems in Computers and Writing: 159 Cyborg Literacy Community Voices 175 5 Challenging Material Conditions and the Nature of Teaching 209 and Learning in Computers and Writing: Cyborg Pedagogy Community Voices 229 6 Setting an Agenda for the Future in and Beyond Computers 261 and Writing: Cyborg Responsibility References 289 Author Index 299 Subject Index 303 v Foreword Anne Ruggles Gere University of Michigan, Ann Arbor These days the word computer is frequently followed by posthuman, a term that has already taken on multiple meanings including human identity as information pattern rather than embodied action, human nature transformed by biotechnology, or the material human body as something to be redesigned or left behind alto- gether. Accordingly, it is refreshing to open a book that insists computers must be considered in light of the people who work with them, and the human community is every bit as important as the technology. James Inman uses a variety of strategies to make good on his claims for the importance of the human community of computers and writing. I didn’t count, but he includes many, many people from the community. Some of them respond to questions, some appear in a montage of scholarly voices, and some participate in an electronic conversation. The questions include “How did you come to be active in the computers and writing community?” “What is the best lesson you have learned from the computers and writing community?” “What scholarly project in computers and writing has been most influential for you, and why has it been so influential?” Som e responses are highly personal accounts, whereas others offer a perspective on the computers and writing community, but there are no commen- taries on the posthuman. The question I found most interesting was “What worries you about the com- puters and writing community, and why does it worry you?” Responses varied from what I would call status concerns—how computers and writing does or does not connect with other communities, fields, and disciplines in the academy—to wondering where the community will go next and if it will be able to retain its cut- ting edge quality, to concerns about how little the community problematizes soft- vii viii FOREWORD ware, to questions about what technology does for students. No one worries about the implications of posthumanism. The montage of scholarly voices includes a variety of pronouncements on what the computers and writing community is accomplishing, its varying levels of effectiveness, and issues it will need to face. Participants in the Tuesday Café dis- cussion of the Netoric Project focus on the future of computers and writing, con- sidering technical support, compensation, and disagreements within the commu- nity. There’s nothing about the posthuman in either of these, or anywhere else in the book. Given both Inman’s argument for the importance of the human community and the way he makes that argument, the absence of the posthuman is not surprising. Instead of looking toward the ways human nature will be changed by technology, he does several things to underscore the community among the humans repre- sented in the book. In addition to including comments by a great number of indi- viduals, Inman presents everyone in a nonhierarchical way. None of the usual markers of institutional affiliation and status are included. Graduate students appear alongside graying professors, and the comments of each receive equal attention. What Inman does include is a photograph of each of the individuals who responds to a question in one of the “Community Voices” sections. We see faces and bodies along with the words. In her book, How We Became Posthuman, N. Katherine Hayles (1999) ob- serves that thought depends on the specificities of the embodied form enacting it. She argues that it does matter that emotions in humans are mediated through the hormonal system, whereas emotions in computers are created through feedback loops between algorithmically encoded goals, scripts, and personality parameters. Inman’s inclusion of images of the embodied selves who participate in the com- puters and writing community speaks directly to that issue by displaying images of the embodied forms that generated the thought encoded on the page. Further- more, Inman’s concept of the cyborg era, which he defines as a present in which individuals, technologies, and their contexts all receive equal attention, insists that people have a necessary relationship to their technologies. Because the term cyborg era builds on the concept of the cyborg as an agent of change, the human– technology relationship in this view will include agency for the human. With that agency comes an agenda which Inman details as (a) remembering individuals in an y technology and/or technology-adoption decision, (b) actively seeking and promoting diversity, (c) articulating and modeling resistance, and (d) participating in the design of technologies. In many ways this book shares a common perspective with what is called humanistic informatics, a broad inter- disciplinary area that studies the interactions between humans, the institutions they create, and the information technologies, especially computers. Regardless of what we call it, Inman’s perspective offers an important alternative to those who elide what Hayles (1999) calls the very real and significant differences in embod- iment between protein and silicon life forms. Preface Computers and Writing: The Cyborg Era explores the landscape of the contempo- rary computers and writing community. Its six chapters engage critical issues in the community, including redefining its generally accepted history, connecting contemporary innovators with the community’s longstanding spirit of innovation, advocating for increased access and diversity through pedagogy, and more. Between chapters, readers will find “Community Voices” segments, which are designed to provide a snapshot of the contemporary computers and writing com- munity and to introduce community members in their own voices. These elements together define what I am calling the cyborg era of computers and writing. The defining features of Computers and Writing are its introduction of the cyborg era as a term requiring consistent and equitable attention on individuals, technologies, and the contexts they share all at once, rather than on only one or two such elements, and its argument that the computers and writing community is best represented by many voices, rather than a single perspective or series of perspectives. These emphases inform and indeed shape each of the six chapters, as well as the “Community Voices” segments. No previous project has presented the issues and individuals of the community all at once and at such a broad scale, as this book does. In this way, Computers and Writing is a unique venture. As already noted, Computers and Writing’s chapters address key issues in the contemporary computers and writing community: • Chapter 1 defines computers and writing as a community, emphasizing the individuals who interact and do work in the area, rather than the work they do alone. The chapter also defines the cyborg era, arguing that it reflects a necessary and compelling contemporary convergence of individuals, technologies, and the contexts they share. Chapter 1 concludes with a montage of scholarly views, emphasizing the many voices of the community in form and content. • In chapter 2, I argue for an extended history of the computers and writing community, one grounded not in when computers first entered writing class- ix