The Devil Machine

Technology has had myriad tranformative effects on society as a whole. With new telecommunications technologies, individuals can communicate with others all around the world quickly, easily, and cheaply. The impact on this on literature and education has been enormous: both of these used to be concentrated in small establishments and institituions, but are now decentralized and available around the world. Though some of these technologies may not yet be sufficiently robust to be applicable to a universal context, the technology is progressing at a breakneck pace.

Literature and Media: Oscar Grant
The advent of technology has had vast implications for the creation and distribution of literature and has perhaps even constituted a radical re-definition of what literature means. For the purpose of this discussion, literature will be taken to be any form of expression through words, be it written, visual, or audible. The most important implication of technology for literature has been that it makes literature available to nearly everyone and makes it easier for anyone to create and distribute their own literature, leading to a decentralization of the "literary establishment". This recalls a class discussion we had that posited storytelling as a "privilege of the rich". The example that resonated the most for me is that of the body of literature surrounding the murder of Oscar Grant. By far the most famous of these is the the movie (movies are literature too ) Fruitvale Station, but it also includes articles, blog posts, songs, and various other media. The question that arises when considering media around a controversial event is that of whose voice gets conveyed through these media. The mainstream media reaction to the event was mixed, with some commentators saying that the shooting was an accident, others highlighting it as an example of police brutality, and some decrying it as an act of racism. With each of these responses, it's important to consider whose voice is being heard. Over 85% of political commentators are upper class and white, and 75% are white men. Thus, the mainstream reaction to this event is that of upper class white men, who view the event entirely differently than someone closer to the victim might have. This is why technology is so important to literature and media: it opens up vehicles for minority viewpoints to be brought to the forefront.

These minority voices are readily apparent in the literature surrounding the murder of Oscar Grant. Fruitvale Station was directed by Ryan Coogler, a black man who grew up in Oakland. His proximity to the victim significantly changed his perspective on the event and, from a literary perspective, radically altered the moral of his story: his message is one of solidarity and opposition to racism. This can also be seen in the song/spoken word track "My Name is Oscar" by jazz musician Ambrose Akinmusire, another black man from Oakland. Both of these works are representative of the underrepresented minority voice in society. Technology is fundamental to the existence of both of these works, as Coogler developed his film independently (and film itself is a hallmark of technology) and Akinmusire distributed his song exclusively through the Internet. Independent filmmaking in a widespread context is a relatively recent phenomenon stemming from cheaply available technology needed for filmmaking and from much greater ease in learning filmmaking techniques. Thus, both were able to make their voices heard without having the affluence or influence to gain access to a large media corporation because of the availability of technology. Furthermore, people could gain access to these media easily through the Internet. The entire field of literature and media has been radically altered by technology because it diversifies the voices that are represented by literature and makes these voices heard by a much wider audience.

Literature and Media: The Internet
The Internet has had a role in radically redefining written literature in another extremely important way: namely, the advent of huge amounts of independent and self-published literature. With the existence of e-book formats, literally anyone with a computer can write something and distribute it to the entire world. One particularly interesting manifestation of this is the realm of fan fiction, literature created by fans of existing works involving the characters of those works. One of the most popular websites for hosting these works isArchive of Our Own (AO3), whose stated intent is "protecting and defending out work from commercial exploitation and legal challenge". This website is particularly committed to allowing anyone to "publish" their works online for free and allowing everybody access to them, reclaiming literature from corporate or academic establishments and allowing it to give a voice to anyone. This gives rise to an interesting trend: fan fiction is probably the most universally positive source for literature with positive representations of queer characters. Looking at analytics of the most popular romantic pairings of characters, one finds that the trend is overwhelmingly toward same sex pairings. Thus, this independently created and shared literature is one of the best outlets for giving a voice to queer individuals and giving them positive media representation by decentralizing the creation of literature to an extreme extent.

Education: Florida Virtual School
One of the most divisive issues in academia is the role of technology in education. A recent trend is the idea of presenting an entire course online through the Internet, often at a great distance. In the state of Florida, online education is dominated by Florida Virtual School, an entity founded in 1997 as the first statewide virtual learning program in the nation wherein teachers teach classes of 80-100 students from around the entire state of Florida, never actually meeting the students in person. Recently, legislation has passed that now requires students to complete at least one online course in order to graduate from high school. This program is freely available to all Florida public school students and allows them to take as many classes as they want. Their motto is "Any Time, Any Place, Any Path, Any Pace". Each facet of this motto represents an important part of the innovation presented by this system. The courses are available to anyone whenever they want them, as opposed to the rigidly structured schedule of a brick and mortar school. The courses are also available over the summer, so students can take entire courses over their breaks if they want to and can work during weekends. It's also available at any place, thus giving access to students who might not be able to attend a physical school space due to health issues. It also allows students to take classes at many different levels, though at this point the focus still seems to be more skewed toward lower-level and remedial courses. (It's extremely common for schools to allow students who have failed classes in their physical school to retake the class online for credit and to get their failing grade expunged.)  The matter of pace is slightly more complicated. While the system does ostensibly allow students to complete their courses at whatever pace they desire, there is still a need for some structure: students are given a "recommended pace" chart that they are expected to at least loosely follow. This is especially the case with Advanced Placement courses, as students need to complete the course prior to the national exam that is administered in May of each year. On the whole, though, there are numerous benefits to this type of system.

There are, however, additionally several drawbacks that the system has not yet adequately addressed. One of the most egregious is that of academic honesty: it is not an uncommon occurrence for students who are at risk of not graduating to pay someone else to complete their entire course for them. Because the only interactions with the instructor are over the phone and through e-mail, there is not yet a good system for remedying this. Furthermore, with the entire Internet at their disposal, enforcing academic honesty during online exams is extremely difficult. To combat these problems, some brick and mortar schools are starting to require students in online courses to take their exams in their physical school while being monitored by a teacher. This system cuts down significantly on the cheating problem, though it is still in its early stages and has not been adopted universally around the state. Another problem that is very often cited (and perhaps the most insumountable one) is the lack of valuable student-teacher interactions. Classroom interactions are considered to be a vital part of learning and for good reasons: teachers are immediately available to answer questions, it aids students in their social development, and it allows students to learn from other students in a way that the system currently doesn't allow for. Although the technology does not yet exist to fully address these issues, it's definitely improving with more readily available technology for things like video conferences and virtual blackboards. Despite the physical distance, technology is drawing online students and teachers closer together as time goes on. In the future, perhaps even these concerns will be obsolete.

Education: Readings in World Literature
How does technology play a role in this class? In my first quarter class with Professor Paul, there was essentially one main role of technology in our class: Chalk postings. Chalk, the Blackboard-based platform that we use at the University of Chicago for all classes, has a section for "Class Discussions". This is essentially a message board for students to discuss ideas pertinent to the class. Personally, I did not find this to be particularly useful because almost every post was done solely for the sake of completion (because it was graded). It was very rare to find a post that a student had actually put effort into because they were due at 9 PM the night before the reading was due (thus, usually before any students had actually finished the reading). In my second quarter class with Professor Rubini, the only role that technology played was in the distribution of readings. This allowed us to read some works that might be considered ancillary to the class at hand (such as The Ascent of Mt. Ventoux and excerpts from the Divine Comedy) without having to pay for it. Additionally, this method of distribution is nearly immediate, allowing the instructor to give us things to read as late as the night before class and still allowing us to complete the readings. Thus, technology allowed us to read more literature easily and freely.

The problem at hand is now how technology functions in this class and how it could be utilized more beneficially. At the moment, the key functions of technology are for distributing readings and turning in papers. While both of these are very helpful, they definitely are not using the power of these technologies to their full potentials. My colleague, Grace, recently created a blog for this class discussing the role of technology in education as well as discussing the literature we've read in general. This platform allows student to engage in literature beyond the confines of the classroom and engage in additional discussions. This website was designed with similar goals: expanding our analysis of literature beyond our classroom and allowing for a new medium of discussion and learning. This particular medium also has the power to allow students to discuss whatever they want about the texts, including those that may not be as pertinent to the themes of the class and that we consequently did not cover in class. A recent Viewpoints column in the Chicago Maroon discussed the shortcomings of a traditional discussion based class - having one large discussion for so many people at once often makes it difficult to have full discussions due to the chaotic nature of the discourse and because it doesn't afford students an opportunity to fully develop ideas through discussion. With the power of technology, however, these discussions aren't limited by time or space and, instead, multiple conversations can be happening at once without anything getting lost and ideas can be more fully developed. With this powerful tool, learning can expand beyond just the classroom and reach students in entirely new ways and lead to a richer, fuller discourse.