Rain Clouds on the Horizon

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What I see as a likely rain cloud is a conflict over how we theorize hyper-reading. In English departments, almost from the outset, work in electronic environments followed the fault lines of the old division between “lit/comp” as contrasting listservs, forums, and electronic journals began to spring up. One of the first major listservs where pedagogy was discussed was Megabyte University, which stood somewhat in contrast to another popular listserv at that time, TechnoCulture, where postmodern literary theory was invoked. I believe this pattern has continued. Two contrasting styles of theorizing seem to dominate considerations of cyberspace—a contrast I would name “pedagogical” and “postmodern.” I do not believe that the concerns that provoke such contrasting theoretical styles are as yet well integrated. Theorists like Baudrillard are too speculative to be used as the basis of an electronic pedagogy and thus stand out as a “literary” interpretation of the World Wide Web as a “media” phenomenon. At the time I am writing, the circumstance that postmodern and pedagogical concerns are not well integrated in views of cyberspace as a “work environment” is not a problem, but it could become one.

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Were proponents of electronic environments to use speculative theorems to evaluate hyper-reading practices—for example, postmodern conceptions of cyberspace that can be derived from the work of Baudrillard, I believe that hyper-reading would appear to imply the destruction of scholarly reading practices. Speculative theories about cyberspace and virtuality such as Baudrillard’s tend to suggest more radical departures from our current norms than seem, at least to me, warranted. If we discussed hyper-reading in such term, it would, I believe, have consequences in our academic forums not unlike the consequences deconstructive theorems have had subsequent to the 1966 Hopkins Symposium—scholars quickly divided institutionally into orthodox and heterodox groups. This led to the theory wars—to my mind one of the least productive periods in the history of English departments. Given the complit split in many departments, it seems predictable that, as hyper-reading becomes a more significant feature of the work that goes on in English departments, clashes over its value will surely force realignments (but, in the last analysis, largely renew old hostilities). I do not mean to suggest that literature faculties will on the whole become proponents of postmodern views such as Baudrillard’s and composition faculties will refuse such postmodern assumptions as incompatible with their pedagogies. On the contrary, I believe—as I mentioned in the beginning of this essay—that phenomenon such as hyper-reading will be perceived by anti-cybernauts as a loss of coherence, substance, and depth. Postmodern speculations about cyberspace can easily become rebuttal targets in arguments against practices such as hyper-reading by advocates of textual coherence, unity, and structure. In this scenario, my guess is that the pedagogical theorizing about electronic environments will, for the most part, be ignored and the battles will be fought over the potential loss of “norms” that provide “discipline.”

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So, how should we theorize hyper-reading?