Google, Meditation, and Tagging?

Carr's "Is Google Making Us Stupider?" was read while attempting to hold a conversation on the phone, but that was abandoned after I realized that I didn't really care what my friend was talking about and that I had better focus on what I was reading if I was going to make any sense of it. And lo and behold, it was about losing the ability to pay attention! I'm not sure how much surfing the web or doing research through a computer has affected my concentration - I would blame that more on the years spent on the sofa watching TV. But even though I may not personally be able to relate, I do think that something is changing in the way our minds make connections. Ever see those commercials about "information overload"? People do seem to know some stuff about a lot of things, but not really a whole lot about a few things, but I'm not sure if that has anything to do with Google, the Internet, or surfing - just an observation, and kind of a confession (do I fit into this category?). It seems to me that we're connecting information in a more web-like structure, but then again maybe the terminology is what is affecting us. Before the "web" would I ever have just made the statement I just did. Maybe our minds are working much in the same way they always have but the way that we describe it is different.

Next Article - Anderson's "In Defense of Distraction" - somewhat linked to the previous article, this dealt with how people are more distracted, their methods of focusing, multitasking, etc. I liked his example of trying to focus on a dot, and see how long you can focus on a single thing. Even though he spent a half an hour staring at it, it's not like he was focusing on it the whole time. A mind begins to wande;, noticing aspects of the dot you may have never realized before. Also, the realization that meditation is a "state of focused distraction" was a somewhat new concept to me. So that's how they do it! No need to focus on just one thing, a myriad will do, as long as you're focusing.

The first article, by Clay Shirky, was a bit hard for me to grasp. I'm not all that web-literate, and all the talk about tagging, especially towards the end, felt a little above my head. Although I did enjoy being enlightened as to the differences between the way Yahoo and Google make connections and establish hierarchies between categories. I guess the graphs helped with that part... Overall, the website showed that categorization is meaningless, that various things fall into many categories, and an attempt to label one thing as belonging to a particular category negates it's participation within other categories.

Research Paper Update

My trip to the DPL last Tuesday was awesome! I got to hold a bible that was printed in 1533. They actually let me touch it (with gloves on while they held on to my ID)! It was written in Latin, and I couldn't read it, but I did recognize some words. Nevertheless, it was pretty neat. It smelled like a campfire. So, what next? Well, I'm thinking that my paper is going to focus primarily on the function of Bibles within English society during the 16th century. The first Bible I looked at was in Latin, and I think I would prefer to view ones written in English, just so I can be more familiar with them. I decided to search the library's catalog for Bibles in the rare books collection, limiting it to ones printed in English. Going through the library's catalog, the titles of the bibles may give some hints as to changing cultural views:



Biblia Polyglotta
Publisher: Arnaldi Guillelmi de Brocario
Pub date: 1514-17.

This sounds pretty unassuming, right? Not much informationto be found just in the title, but let's look ahead in time to 1609:



The Holie Bible faithfvlly translated into English, ovt of the avthentical Latin. Diligently conferred with the Hebrew, Greeke, and other editions in diuers languages. With Argvments of the bookes, and chapters: annotations: tables: and other helpes, for better vnderstanding of the text: for discourerie of corrvptions in some late translations: and for clearing controversies in religion

Publisher: Printed ... by Lavrence Kellam

Pub date: 1609 - 10

Sooo.... all of that is the title?



But maybe there's something to be said about that huge title, especially because of the claims towards better understanding of the text, and clearing controversies in religion. Maybe something about how people's attitudes towards religion were changing/changed over the last century - in a particular place, in a particular time.

Here's the frustrating thing - the whole time I've been writing now, I've been attempting to find out more about these two books. AND ALL THE INFO IS WRONG! Published in France? Can't be. It's printed in English. Well, maybe that's possible but further detective work must be done... Also my next step is to search for any related articles about the subject of religion and bibles during the 16th C.

Readings

I enjoyed reading Monaghan's Literacy Instruction and Gender in Colonial New England. I already understood that women were not encouraged to write, and always just assumed a connection between selling one's work as equal to selling one's body. But the reading also brought up the fact that although women were not encouraged to write by hand, sewing was a core part of their instruction. Yes, sewing was important in order to repair clothing, which was more expensive then than now. But then I thought about thoses samplers that girls would have to sew to show off their skills. And they had words sewn on them. So then I thought of samplers as a way of writing. Most samplers I've seen always begin with the alphabet at the top, and usually the main area is filled by a scripture. In a way, it's like the girls' version of writing. They probably had specific instructors to teach them sewing skills, kind of like the boys had specific instructors to teach them how to write. Although trying to make some sort of equivocation between being taught how to write and being taught how to sew may not really have any merit, (because from our standpoint we believe that acquiring the skill of writing is better than, or more worthwhile) for the time, they may have thought the two skills were equally valuable, albeit the different skills were gendered.

Research Paper

I guess it must be getting close to the end of the semester... I actually have to start thinking about my paper? Already? Well, that makes sense...there will probably be a lot of research involved, countless hours of reading, etc.

Going over the list of topics that Dr. Maruca gave us in class last week, one in particular stood out for me, most likely because it contained a strange word, one that Dr. Maruca had a hard time pronouncing, one which I had never heard before, and which caught my eye: incunabula.

The topic sounds a bit like a treasure hunt; first I must find a book. Then I must locate the book's history (where it came from, who wrote it, the author's significance), analyze it's cultural significance, and put it all together to form a paper that may not end up being about what is between the front and back covers of the book! I've never written a paper about what a book is, usually I spend a lot of time examining the text; specific word usage, metaphors, authorial intent. And some of these things may affect my paper, but I think the most important part of this particular paper will be learning about a type of book and about what that type of book did for the culture and time in which it was written. I think it may just be fun perusing the shelves of the Detroit Public Library (a place I haven't been to since I was a kid) and hunting down an old text with which I have no familiarity, but which in a few weeks I will know a lot about.

I will soon be embarking on what I expect to be a treasure hunt, and although I have just begun formulating the idea of how to go about this, I hope some of my blog readers will have some suggestions. For now, I don't have any idea where this hunt will take me and I really don't know what the end product will be, but I know I will learn a lot along the way!

The Emergence of the "Author"

Well, we had three readings this week, and one common thread between all three was this emerging idea, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, of what an author is, does, and what he (or she, as Dr. Maruca points out) should be. From an example of an author (and printer) like Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) to drawing connections between women's impact on the distribution of print to their eventual participation in authorship, to an in-depth look at the creation of the notion of intellectual property, the three readings serve as a commentary on just what authors were during this time period, be they male or female, and their function within the vast web that made up the printing industry. Because, as we saw, authors were not seperate entities from the industry. They were not viewed as the autonomous creatures we think they are. They weren't the geniuses that we worship today. They were, for the most part, everyday people looking to make an impact in their communities and earn a little money and a reputation along the way.

Got some reading to do, will return to post more later...

So, I really liked the movie we watched in class Thursday. Although it wasn't really about copyright regarding printing, it was about copyright in general. I think it raised some good issues about the "author" of a piece of music, and we can relate that to writing. After all, it's all "intellectual property", right? Through our readings we learned that during the 17th & 18th centuries the development of the idea of the author became an issue in the printing industry. Now in our era, although we seem to have the issue of copyright regarding writing pretty much figured out, a new dillema has emerged regarding the issue of authorship in the music industry. And it's all because of those damn computers.

Colonization & Print in the Americas

Hello all!!! I wrote a paper for my presentation, forgetting that I was supposed to write a blo0g about it. This is basically the "copy & paste" version:

Summary
The title of the web site is “Cultural Readings: Colonization & Print in the Americas”. The site may be viewed at: http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/rbm/kislak/index/cultural.html. The web site was conceived by John Pollack, designed by Greg Bear, Anne Lutun, and John Pollack, and the design was implemented by Greg Bear and Anne Lutun. The images were scanned by Greg Bear, Elissa Brown, Julian Hoeber, and Anne Lutun. It is important to mention who scanned the images because the website presents many images and then explains their cultural and historical significance. The images were chosen from two exhibits concerned with colonization and print in the Americas that were exhibited in late 1997 and early 1998. Also, the web site text was done by Arthur Dunkelman, John Pollack, Michael T. Ryan, and Karim M. Tiro. All of the people who helped design this online exhibit are scholars, professors, curators, or directors within the University of Pennsylvania Library or the Rosenbach Museum.
The site is divided into six main categories: Promotion and Possession, Viewers and the Viewed, Print and Native Cultures, Religion and Print, New World Lands in Print, and Colonial Fictions, Colonial Histories. Each category, or link, contains further links within each page. The site also includes an introduction, scholarly essays on topics related to the exhibition, a bibliography, and a list of web links.
“Promotion and Possession” deals with the European desire to obtain land in America for colonization, exploitation of resources, and the furthering of Christianity. This section contains links to “New Spain”, “English”, and “New France”, and deals with how each country used print to accelerate the European push for colonization and make colonial outposts attractive to would-be emigrants.
The next link, “Viewers and the Viewed”, shows us images of Indians that circulated throughout Europe. This section has four further links entitled “Early Impressions”, “Black Legends”, “The de Bry Engravings”, and “Native Cultures, Ancient Cultures”. Each section describes its topic according to images that circulated that promoted certain ideals regarding Indians in the Americas.
“Print and Native Cultures” is the third link from the main page. This section illuminates the differences between Indians throughout North, Central, and South America. European observers used native informants to record indigenous traditions. The three further links from “Print and Native Cultures” are “Print as a (Re)source for Native Cultures”, which is a collection of prints and manuscripts that document the cultures, “Oral Cultures in Print”, which contains images of Indians giving speeches, a speech from Red Jacket, and also contains images of the wampum, and “Native Writing”, which shows how many Indians used their newfound literacy to advance their own goals, preserve their oral traditions, appeal to religious white audiences, and to help each other become literate.
The fourth link entitled “Religion and Print” deals with the difficulties the colonizers had when converting indigenous peoples to Christianity. The two links from this page are “Missionary Accounts” and “Missionaries and Indian Languages”. “Missionary Accounts” shows several accounts of various missionaries from various countries and each discusses the obstacles of conversion. “Missionaries and Indian Languages” documents the importance of the printing press in New Spain, shows examples of a codified native language in western forms that missionaries used as a sort of guide book for converting Indians, and also shows how New Englanders attempted to translate and print Indian languages.
“New World Lands and Print” discusses how new maps of the 15th century caused people to view their world differently and shows how use of maps was critical in compelling native populations to accept the division of their lands. The first further link from this page is “New Geographies” and it discusses individual cartographers’ influence on the way the people of their respective countries were affected by their new maps and labels of outside lands. The second further link is “Dividing Territory”. Here, the use of print to legitimize of claims for land ownership by the colonizers is discussed.
The final section, “Colonial Fictions, Colonial Histories” discusses accounts of the new world that were generated in print in order to formulaically confirm readers’ impressions of the Americas and of American peoples. This page has three further links: “Histories”, “Antiquities”, and “Captivities”. “Histories” shows excerpts from historical writers who wrote histories of their encounters in the New World. Generally, histories were used to justify European empire building. “Antiquities” discusses how it became fashionable during the 18th and 19th centuries to delve into the histories and antiquities of various Indian cultures. “Captivities” shows examples of captivity stories that were written as early as the 16th century, but their popularity among European readers continued on through the 18th and 19th centuries.

Was It Worthwhile?
This topic interested me because it deals with the ways print can influence readers, even if the information is biased. Many of the accounts of the New World that were disseminated throughout Europe were cleaned-up versions of the real atrocities that were occurring in the New World. My first impression of the site was that it was scholarly, because it is sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania. The physical format of the site was inviting; the way that it encouraged me to click on links in order to view more information regarding specific topics gave the feeling that I was delving deeper into the information, as I really was getting more specific information regarding the pictures that were presented. I also liked that I could either click on the picture for more information or follow the link within the text to get to the same information. The pictures were created from scans of colors slides or from direct scans of original materials, and also a few from black and white photographs. This helped to create the feeling that I was looking at authentic materials.

The information presented within this web site is definitely reliable and valid. All of the persons involved with the production of the site are academia-related people. The information does not seem to be biased; it presents images of printed materials and discusses the relevance they have to each category in which they are presented. The sources for the information presented are two exhibits: one that was shown at the University of Pennsylvania’s Van Pelt-Dietrich Library and the second exhibit was shown at the Rosenbach Museum and Library. The University of Pennsylvania sponsors the site, and the domain of the document is an .edu domain, further attesting to its validity. The format, appearance, and writing style all appear professional. There are many images, but each is accompanied by text that not only explains the image, but gives detailed information regarding the impact of the material that the image was taken from.

This web site serves to illuminate the fact that print was a reliable tool to influence people’s views on the world around them. Although much of the information sent back to Europe was skewed in favor of colonization, the fact that print was used in order to further a mission is what really relates to our class. Print was used in many ways to further the majority’s views. Regarding print in the Americas, it was used to promote emigration, validate possession of lands, present idealized views of natives, disseminate Christian religion, and create histories of conquests in the New World. I would recommend this site to anyone interested in the impact of print on the colonization of the Americas.

Deibert readings

Whew! That was a lot of information, and I still have a chapter to go...



So far, Deibert has outlined the effects of printing on the papacy, beginning by outlining the effects of manuscript copying and why that became the favored way to transmit the written word, all the way to how print influenced the Protestant reformation, to using print as an effort to produce social and economic homogenization. Beginning with the church, efforts towards a uniform collection of knowledge were evidenced by the church's selection of which texts to copy in manuscript, and which ones to leave out of the collection. By doing so, the church effectively had a monopoly over literature. No wonder they could influence so many Kings! The clergy were the only people who could read and write, and everyone thought that that was the way it should be. One interesting point in this section was the way people thought about words, how they were actual representations of things, not merely abstract representations of them. It was like by writing the word "tree", the soul of the tree was wrapped up in the word "tree", and the two could not be separated. This illustrates a point made in my linguistics class the other day, how we are beginning to undo and redo words, for example the word "overwhelmed" has a meaning, but not the word "whelmed". In today's society, we have come up with "underwhelmed" to mean the opposite of "overwhelmed". So, it is much easier for us to separate meaning from arbitrary representations of things/ideas.



Trithemius' warnings against printing, or rather his reasons for copying came to mind when reading the section about monastic copying. As Deibert says, as the monks were the only ones who could read and write, their obligations toward reading and interpreting law matters for the lay man became more and more demanding. More and more monks were probably leaving their work to work in the public realm. Trithemius probably felt a need to bring the monks back to the individualized act of copying religious manuscripts partially due to this trend toward public domain work. This notion is purely presumptuous, but it may have affected him enough to influence him towards writing his treatise.

Well, I've finished reading. The last chapter we were assigned is divided into three parts. First Deibert delves into familiar territory - the sense of individuality that comes along with reading. Not only the detachment of the reader in the act of silent reading, but the fact that printing gave authors a sense of individuality as well. They began to have an idea of themselves as an author(itative) voice, and this brought about the "individual reputation". It's funny though, because as I've learned, many writers (even up to the 18th and 19th centuries) didn't want to be published. They preferred to have their manuscripts circled around their coterie of friends. I guess Diebert isn't talking about them. Anyway, this idea of authorship and individual identity tied to one's work was a whole new idea for writers and is prevalent today. When we talk about what we've read, it's usually by saying something like: Have you read so-and-so? We don't usually name the work, rather the author.

He also makes an interesting point about cartography. As maps related a more rigid demarcation of political space, this linear "view" of the world influenced how people saw their position in the world. It brought about new ideas related to nationalism. It encouraged borders, defining "insiders" and "outsiders". Overall, printing affected our thinking. This section about map making really shows that what we look at affects how we think about the world around us. That's the biggest message I took from Chapter 4.

Nothing But Good Can Come From Obedience

In his printed treatise, Johannes Trithemius expostulates on the many virtues a monk will acquire by copying. He gives arguments for the practice, and uses scripture to back up his arguments. Copying makes one closer to God, it is a practice of servitude and obedience and he says all monks should copy because it suits monks; it is the most suitable work for a monk to do because it involves solitude, servitude, and meditation on the Word.

From the beginning, he says "The learned will shine as brightly as the vault of heaven, and those who have instructed many in virtue as bright as the stars of all eternity". This refers both to those who, by their talents, have created the new and to those who have copied the old. So, to those who create the new, doesn't that include printers? Printing was new, right? Well, I guess he may mean authors since they are really the "creators" of a text...

"The scribe is distinguished by devotion", yes! one has to be very devoted to re-writing a whole text BY HAND, but can't they show their devotion in other ways, ie. helping the poor, etc? For Trithemius, the scribe is the ultimate shower of devotion because he equivocates the practice of copying with work and "then are they truly monks when they live by the labor of their hands" (St. Benedict) "No other manual labor is more suitable for us than copying". When I read this I immediately went back to my previous thought about helping the poor and I guess that I thought that would be the best kind of work to do for a monk. But Trimethius' goal is to expostulate on the virtues of copying. He doesn't want to make any other form of devotion look good. Copying is the best!

He also warns of the "younger monks who aren't sufficiently trained in the customary exercises" and who use big words. He tells the abbot or prior to pull him back down to "the solid ground of obedience" because what better suits a monk than absolute obedience, to God, to the scripture, to his superiors... Therefore, copying becomes a way to exercise obedience in order to focus themselves on the word and not delve into "dangerous unchecked liberties". But I think if there is a problematic young monk out there, making him copy a text may not be the best way to discipline him. As we talked about in class, one can copy a text without really reading and thinking about it. Sometimes it just becomes an act of writing specific letters in order, and the words get lost. I think it would be better to just read and study what was read. Especially if you're a monk who is losing his way- you're not going to want to study what you're copying. Just get the job done, hand it in to your superiors and be done with it. Kinda like how I feel about writing papers (and blogs). Overall, I think Trithemius is aggravated - with the advent and popularity of printing, and with young monks. He basically begins his treatise laying out reasons for copying, but I think towards the end is where he really gets to what is on his mind: disobedient monks.