Rethinking the "humanistic": technical communication and computers and writing as sites of change in English studies

Date

2002-08

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Volume Title

Publisher

Texas Tech University

Abstract

The conflict between what C. P. Snow names the "two cultures" of literature and the humanities, and science and technology, respectively, is a well-documented source of tension in the modem academy. In Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education, Martha Nussbaum, for instance, describes a vision of the academic humanities that seeks to produce students who are "world citizens," yet her articulation of such a humanistic education all but excludes technology, thus reinscribing Snow's bifurcation. The tension between the "cultures" plays an important role in contemporary English Studies, as well, made particularly palpable in the "technologized rhetorical subdisciplines" of English: technical communication and computer-based composition.

Following the work of Robert Johnson, Jay David Bolter, and others, this dissertation traces efforts by scholars in both technical communication and computers and writing to sketch descriptions of the humanistic nature of their respective fields of inquiry, a process that has been a necessary part of both defining the boundaries of each discipline and reconciling their definitional relationships to technology with the values of English Studies, the usual departmental home for each.

Interestingly, efforts to articulate a humanistic character, what Paul M. Dombrowski calls the "humanistic aspects" of these technologized rhetorical subdisciplines, have often relied on conservative, techno-skeptical notions of the humanistic that align well with academic humanities ideology but oftentimes resist alternative humanistic frameworks that recognize technology as central, rather than opposed, to humanistic goals and action. More inclusive philosophies of humanism like those defined in the three twentieth-century publications of the Humanist Manifesto can help scholars recast a more pragmatic interpretation of the humanistic that rehabilitates technology in English Studies eyes by countering traditional arguments, usually polemical in nature, which situate technology against the values advanced in English Studies and the academic humanities. Doing so not only helps technical communication and computers and writing develop a more authentic description of their humanistic character and disciplinary definition but also holds promise for extending the reach and vitality of English Studies broadly defined as cultural demands for a more sophisticated and holistic view of technology increase

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Keywords

Humanities -- Electronic publishing, Rhetoric, Communication of technical information

Citation