Essay One: Dr. Glen Smith

An advantage of our position as English majors is that we are given the tools to put current writing in a historical context. We can compare literature now to literature written hundreds of years ago, we can compare social situations that created certain literary works to literature being created now in different circumstances, and we can use forms and tools that have been utilized for hundreds of years to continue a tradition of high quality literature. Traditional literary study is essential for an understanding of current literary study.

The same applies to a digital approach to studying the humanities. As Alan Liu points out, social media is not a brand new idea. Humans have been sharing ideas in different forms for centuries. Web 2.0 is the current manifestation and it would be harmful to ignore all of the forms of sharing that have been used in the past. 

Moby Dick is a great example of a book that reveals a lot about digital culture that might be ignored if we are preoccupied only with writing that is current or discarding traditional literature. Moby Dick, with all of its tangents about mariner life, whales, and back stories for each character, functions a lot like a wiki. Reading chapter 32, about cetology, might be like opening a browser alongside the text to learn more about whales and to better understand the narrative, which is heavy with nautical jargon. 

Moby Dick is obviously more complex than a wiki because it offers its facts through the lens of the narrator, which is not always reliable, and the presentation of information is all in the context of the story, but what it showcases is the human hunger for knowledge. The author channels his enthusiasm for the sea and his own research about whales into a narrative with a lot of chapters about cartography, how lines work in a ship, and how whales are taken apart and boiled down into oil after they have been caught. Without the explanatory chapters, we would have a harder time understanding what it means to be "caught in the line." This is very much like how modern bloggers will insert links in their entries to direct readers to more information about a subject.

If we connect with traditional literature, it will continue to enrich our writing and help us to offer better reading experiences for our readers. Sharing stories doesn't mean that we need to limit ourselves to a narrative. Like Herman Melville, we can be creative with the text and add things to give a better overall understanding. 

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Studying traditional forms helps us to expand upon those forms and change them, like Mozart did with forms invented by Bach. And Beethoven with forms invented by Mozart.