Knievel: "What is Humanistic about Computers and Writing?"

Since Erin claimed my choice, I'll claim this one...

Knievel, Michael. “What is Humanistic about Computers and Writing? Historical Patterns and Contemporary Possibilities for the Field.” Computers and Composition 26.2 (2009): 92-106. Web.

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While we have focused much on technical communication as communicating about a technology, we haven't considered how the technology influences the communication. The union of computers and writing has seriously complicated conceptions of consumption, textual and cultural permanence, ethics, and authorship (94-95). This article charts three historical phases of response to the question "What is humanistic about computers and writing?" during the discipline's history:

• "fear and loathing" (1975-1992): working to overcome the anti-technology stereotype; often supporting the computer's place in the humanities, but with qualifications.
• "moving the social turn online" (1990-2000): recognizing the immense possibilities afforded by networked environments, providing empowerment to both author and consumer as text becomes decentralized and nonlinear. Furthermore, although the field is often constrained by the literary studies model (the "passive reception of immutable truths/texts" [102]), many in the field explore the ethical dimensions of computers and writing.
• "digital literacy and action" (2000 to present): the field is no longer "pattern-matching" with literary studies; instead, new focus is on such issues as digital literacy, and the power and responsibility of being both a critical consumer and producer of knowledge. Knievel (citing Selber) notes, "Successful participation in civil society and the workplace, then, seems to require a fusion of literacies to develop in students a technologized rhetorical agility, rendering them capable of both consuming and producing text in an era characterized by shifting notions of text and evolving media forms" (100)-- and this is intrinsic to the humanities.

Knievel concludes his piece by admonishing:

Computers and writing’s recognition of the need for an active, productive humanities that develops citizen-rhetors capable of thinking and composing within the logic of the media of the day suggests the possibility of a growing legitimacy that may, interestingly, more readily find validation outside the academy. (104)

I find that this piece offers interesting intersections with Herndl's article, which was originally published in 1993, when the field was "moving the social turn online." Much of what Herndl is calling for in TC has been manifesting, according to Knievel, since 2000. Computers and writing has, effectively, grown out of ideological resistance; it is still often in conflict with the ideologies often categorized under "literary studies." As noted above, computers and writing complicates many assumed foundations-- authorship, ethics, etc.--thereby providing opportunities to engage in a critical questioning and, hopefully, heighten awareness.