ABOUT US
We are both doctoral students in English literature at The Ohio State University, but we share an interest in assessing digital media's value in the classroom.
We began thinking about this project in response to our participation in OSU's Digital Media and Composition (DMAC) Institute last summer. While most participants were representatives of rhetoric and composition programs, we were not. And we wondered why that was so.
The institute's directors, Cindy Selfe and Scott DeWitt, generously helped to provide direction for this project—encouraging us to ask questions about the culture of pedagogical technology in English departments and to formulate our stance on literature and digital media.
Lis Lindeman (lindeman.7@osu.edu) studies 19th-century British literature. She was introduced to digital media when she started working as the graduate administrative associate for the Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy Studies Program at Ohio State. She was a participant in DMAC '07.
"Before my introduction to digital media, I was convinced that it would only impede my studies, that there really was not a place for digital media in literature. I decided to take DMAC because I knew that there was a problem in my logic. If I weren't afraid of digital media, perhaps I would see its potential."
Gregory O. Smith (smith.5378@osu.edu) studies 20th-century British literature, works for the International James Joyce Foundation, and was Associate Director for DMAC '07. He has taught versions of first-year writing in computer labs for several years.
"The turning point for me was when I realized that we didn't have to sacrifice literature for computers or vice versa. I had always thought about technology as classically antagonistic to books. But it's time to realize that digital resources have great potential to assist with, not destroy, literature, just as they have with most other forms of communication and expression. Look around and see what has been enhanced, not eliminated, in the Internet age."