Newsgroups: alt.uu.future From: jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala) Subject: "Virtual University" article from Thinknet Message-ID: <1992Aug30.075017.18939@nntp.hut.fi> Reply-To: jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala) Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 07:50:17 GMT Lines: 2092 This is a republication of the Thinknet newsletter mentioning the idea of a Virtual University and also UU. From: palmer@WORLD.STD.COM (Kent D Palmer) Newsgroups: alt.cyberspace Subject: THINKNET E-NEWSLETTER ISSUE#3 LONG Message-ID: <9208240550.AA28181@world.std.com> Date: 24 Aug 92 05:50:27 GMT Reply-To: thinknet@world.std.com Lines: 2080 ======================START=OF=THINKNET.003=FILE================= ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| || FINAL DRAFT - YOU MAY DISTRIBUTE THIS VERSION [3] |||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| /| ....... .. .. . . . . .==|........ ... .. .... . .... .. .._____. . * . . / ===|_ _. ..______________________________...... | | | | |\ | / ======== |\ ...| .... |.THINKNET:An Electronic.... | |---| | | \ |< ========== |. \ .|---- . |.Journal Of Philosophy,... | | | | | \| \ ======== |... \| ..... |.Meta-Theory, And Other.. | | | | | | \ ====== |.... |____.. |.Thoughtful Discussions.... .==| ........ .. .... .. ... .. . \| .... ... .. .. . . .. . . ----------------------------------------------------------------- AUGUST 1992 ISSUE 003 VOLUME 1 NUMBER 3 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Thinknet is a newsletter about cooperative philosophical thought in cyberspace, both on BBSs and on the networks. *CONTENTS* THINKNET PUBLICATION DATA THINKNET ESSAY & DISCUSSION CHANNELS - a thoughtSource A HOME FOR THINKNET ON THE WELL - a thoughtSpace VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY - an idea whose time has come POST MODERN CULTURE - an electronic journal EJOURNAL - excerpt from a meta-electronic journal NET JAM - making music on the networks BOOK REVIEW: CYBERSPACE: First Steps - exploring the architecture of cyberspace ESSAY: On Thought Capsules - communicating single ideas efficiently Issues three and four are a back-to-back double issue with the same number. The overflow material is contained in issue four. It has sections on Resources and Feedback. If you do not have issue four you are missing some of the content of this pair of newsletters. Please have a look at that second issue as well. Separating the two issues maintains a reasonable file size and makes it easier for the reader to refer to the main contents of the newsletter. <<<<<>>>>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------- THINKNET PUBLICATION DATA kdp ---------------------------------------------------------------- *Scope* Thinknet is a review of philosophical debates and discussions that are ongoing and enabled by computer mediated communications. Any meta-theoretical exchanges that border on philosophy or Systems Theory that are carried out on the global networks or Bulletin Board Systems are of interest. All thoughtful discussions within the cyberspace medium are considered relevant, especially those with an inter-, multi-, or transdisciplinary character. *Sources, Subscriptions & Submissions* Thinknet is an occasional publication available in both electronic and hard copy versions. Thinknet is available electronically from the following: The WORLD BBS Online Book Initiative Directory To access ftp world.std.com {telnet address: 192.74.137.5} Once connected then login as anonymous, use any password (though an e-mail address as a password is the custom). Once in just "cd obi" (or, specifically for thinknet stuff, "cd obi/NewsLetters/Thinknet"). .................................................... The WELL BBS Thinknet Conference 27 Gate Five Road Sausalito, CA 94965 modem 415-332-6106 voice 415-332-4335 Must register as a user to gain access. Once on system you can look in the phi (philosophy) conference for the thinknet topic. For newsletter issues see the thinknet conference. Send an email message to the host using 'mail thinknet' to gain entrance. Once you have been let in then look in '/well/info/thinknet' for thinknet files. .................................................... GEnie BBS (Religion and Ethics Bulletin Board -- Philosophy category #37) GEnie Client Services 1-800-638-9636 The RELIGION BBS has been revamped and the thinknet topic there has been eliminated. From now on thinknet issues will be uploaded into the library associated with the Religion BBS. Look for a file with name thinkxxx.zip where 'xxx' is the issue number. For example, think003.zip. The editor maintains a topic in the the Philosophy category called KNOWLEDGE PAINFULLY ACQUIRED (Topic #15) in which a cyberspace science fiction dialogue is under construction called The APIERON. Occasionally there is commentary on the Chinese Neo-Confucian book KNOWLEDGE PAINFULLY ACQUIRED for which the topic is named. .................................................... COMPUSERVE Electronic Frontier Foundation reportedly has copies of the newsletter in their directory. .................................................... ALT.CYBERSPACE Some one seems to be posting the whole newsletter to ALT.CYBERSPACE usenet newsgroup. If this continues you may pull it off the net directly. You may subscribe electronically to Thinknet by e-mailing to the following address: thinknet@world.std.com Use the following message format: SENT THINKNET TO YourFullName AT UserId@internet.address Hardcopy subscriptions are available at a nominal cost to cover photocopying, postage and handling. Write the editor for the current rates at the following address: Kent Palmer PO BOX 8383 ORANGE CA 92664-8383 UNITED STATES Thinknet invites individuals to submit information, articles, and news for possible inclusion. Send submissions to the same electronic or postal addresses that appear immediately above for subscriptions. If you would like to become a correspondent reporting on developments on a particular mailing list or bulletin board please apply. We would like to provide summaries of ongoing developments from time to time. Thinknet will mention items it receives that are within its scope and when appropriate, review them. Electronic newsletters, BBS services, books, mailing lists, works in progress, are all of interest. Individuals interested in participating in the preparation and dissemination of this journal are encouraged to apply to the Thinknet address above. We are a particularly interested in identifying Bulletin Board systems where philosophical discussion is carried out in a focused manner, i.e. where philosophy has its own category. Inspiration for the format and design of this electronic journal is taken from the ARTCOM electronic art's related newsletter located on the WELL. Thinknet may be distributed freely in electronic form. It should be considered as shareware. Thus the copyright notice must be preserved and the text copied in its entirety without changes. It is not allowed for anyone to charge for Thinknet newsletter except the original producer. Thinknet newsletter copyright 1992 Kent Palmer. All rights are reserved. It may be not be distributed in paper form without permission of the copyright holder. Single paper copies for personal study are allowed to be printed. *Staff* EDITOR Kent D. Palmer -> palmer@world.std.com CORE GROUP Peter Cash -> cash@muse.convex.com Stephen Clark -> ap01@liverpool.ac.uk Richard Coburn -> 70712.236@compuserve.com Richard Dunn -> 71330.1712@compuserve.com Lance Fletcher -> 71700.715@compuserve.com Brent J. Krawchuk -> brent@myka.questor.wimsey.bc.ca krawchuk@cs.sfu.ca Elan Moritz -> moritz@well.sf.ca.us Mark Peterson -> hiho@csd4.csd.uwm.edu Frank Schroth -> fschroth@world.std.com (copy editor) Bruce Schuman -> brs@well.sf.ca.us Jeff Dooley -> dooley@well.sf.ca.us There are over 2000 subscribers to thinknet newsletter. Thanks for your patience and continued support. ----------------------------------------------------------------- THINKNET ESSAY & DISCUSSION CHANNELS kdp ----------------------------------------------------------------- The changing focus of Thinknet will be reflected in the opening of a few associated mailing lists. These mailing lists will concentrate on the promotion of philosophical discussion on various topics by changing the normal mailing list format. Instead of a single mailing list which bears all traffic there will be several related mailing lists called essay@world.std.com discuss@world.std.com submissions@world.std.com talkone@world.std.com talktwo@world.std.com talkthree@world.std.com talkfour@world.std.com talkfive@world.std.com These are several related channels for information exchange. The essay channel is moderated and edited, by Brent J. Krawchuk, and will be a medium for the publishing of quality essays on any philosophical, systems theoretical, interdisciplinary, or meta-theoretical topics. In order to submit an essay for dissemination the author sends it to submissions@world for consideration. When it is approved it will be published to the list essay@world. Associated with this essay channel will be a separate discussion channel in which the essays or other related topics may be discussed. When conversation becomes intense on a particular subject then the participants may request being moved to one of the talk@world channels to continue their discussion. The concept behind the structure of the lists is that good conversation on the internet is limited by having single channels devoted to particular subjects. So all messages come down that single channel in a Hodge Podge which is difficult to keep track of. Many different conversations are mixed up and it is difficult to concentrate on a particular subject that only a few people are interested in. In order to achieve depth, the essay channel supports long posts that are vetted for both form and content. The criteria for publishing essays will evolve with the list but at first the filtering will be minimal. The point of the essay list is to get people to consider internet as a medium for publishing their ideas in a rough form for comment by others. That commenting occurs on the discussion channel. That channel may carry multiple interleaved conversations of different essays or topics that are brought up for discussion by the list members. These discussions will be unfiltered. But as happens with all lists, certain discussions will take-off. In that case there are the talk channels for these indepth conversations to move to in order not to take up the band width of the main discussion list. If one of these side conversations becomes very long lived I will set up a special list for them to continue on. So what you see here is an experiment in the medium of cyberspace. It is based on the observation of many different mailing lists in action while attempting to understand what prevents good conversation form occurring. The answer formulated here is that one channel is doing the work of several specialized but related channels. The thinknet channels will attempt to remedy this problem with this set of interrelated mailing lists dedicated to thoughtful conversation in cyberspace. Hope you will join the experiment and help us discover whether this or some other solution is the answer. If you would like to join this venture send your name and email address to 'thinknet@world.std.com' using the format: THINKNET ESSAY & DISCUSSION YourFullName Give a short biography and list of interests to introduce yourself. You can join just the essay channel if you wish. If you want to make a submission send it to submissions@world.std.com. You can request guidelines for essays from that address as well. The essence of the internet is personal publishing. The thinknet channels make it possible for you to publish your working papers or polished essays and get feed back from a group with a broad range of interests. However, some attempt will be made to assure the quality of materials published in order to make it possible for others to rely on the quality of information they will receive from this information source. Thus if you have important things you would like to say and get a well considered response the thinknet channels are the place. Lists of thinknet essays will be offered in subsequent versions of the Thinknet newsletter. So those who do not want to subscribe to yet another mailing list will from time to time get updates of the essays published since the last issue. However, the essays will no longer be fresh and the discussion will probably have been long finished. Essays of particularly high quality or intrinsic interest may be published to the thinknet subscription list as a whole. This makes your audience quite large. So if you are looking for an audience for your ideas then please consider the thinknet essay and discussion channels as a place to start that search. ----------------------------------------------------------------- A HOME FOR THINKNET ON THE WELL kdp ----------------------------------------------------------------- Thinknet now has a BBS home on the WELL in San Francisco. Our home is a new category dedicated to thinknet alone. Previously we have posted the newsletter to a topic in the philosophy category. That topic will continue for the foreseeable future. But in addition we will now have our own place to work on future issues and to hold discussions. Essays and discussions from the thinknet channels will be archived in the file space associated with the new category. Also other materials of interest will be maintained there for your access if you are a member of the WELL. If not, it is a good investment as it is one of the the pre-eminent BBSs in the country. It has very active discussions in many different fields. One of those fields is now also thinknet. The thinknet category on the WELL functions as a workspace for the CORE group to discuss upcoming issues. Materials that have been sent in to thinknet will be accessible there which may or may not find their way into the newsletter. It will give a historical record of the development of the newsletter and the discussions among the CORE group that result in each issue. Beyond the production of the newsletter, the category is also a place for indepth discussions modeled on seminars. Each topic will have its facilitator (or host) and will be geared toward serious discussions of any topic related to the scope of thinknet. At the moment the only active seminar under way is on self-organizing systems. But we are open to new members of the category and new seminar ideas. So bring your friends and get ready for some good study and conversation in our new category. In order to join you must become a member of the WELL. This costs about $12 per month and $2 per hour. You can save on long distance connect charges if you can access the WELL using telnet. Otherwise the connect charges are extra and can run anywhere from $1 to $4 per hour. Once you are a WELL member then send me a letter asking to gain admittance. Thinknet conference is private so only members can gain access. Mail the following message: ENTER THINKNET CONFERENCE YourFullName WellUserId to 'thinknet'. Once I send you a reply which says you are admitted then you type 'g thinknet' at the prompt. When you enter the conference you will see the following menu: <<<<<<<<<<<<<<< W E L C O M E T O T H I N K N E T>>>>>>>>>>>>> First topic 1, last 14 Topic - Number of responses - Header 1 3 ANNOUNCEMENTS 2 2 INTRODUCTIONS 3 5 CORE GROUP TALK 4 0 READER FEEDBACK 5 1 INFORMAL CONVERSATION 6 1 COOPERATIVE THINKING IN CYBERSPACE 7 0 ESSAY CHANNEL 8 0 DISCUSSION CHANNEL 9 0 ITEMS OF INTEREST 10 1 SEMINAR: Emergent Systems Process Philosophy 11 31 SEMINAR: Self-organizing Systems 12 7 SEMINAR: Ontology 13 17 SEMINAR: Epistemology 14 10 Metatopic: Improving discussion in the Thinknet Conference <<<<<<<<<<<<<<< L E A V I N G T H I N K N E T>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Introduce yourself in the INTRODUCTIONS topic so we can get to know each other. Then type 's n' in order to see all posted messages. If you want to limit your exposure you might try 'fixseen' and 's n -1' instead. I hope you will join us there for serious discussions of your favorite subject. Bring your philosophically inclined cyberspace friends. And please mention that you are joining the WELL in order to participate in thinknet when you join so that they know that you are interested in keeping this small private conference going for thoughtful conversations in cyberspace. ----------------------------------------------------------------- VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY kdp ----------------------------------------------------------------- I would like to breach a subject I have been thinking of for some time. It is the concept of setting up a virtual university (VU) in cyberspace. It strikes me that it is possible to do almost all the functions of a university in the cyberspace medium. Distance Learning is being explored by many different institutions. Electronic mail is being used for communications between students and teachers and between researchers with the same interests. So slowly this new medium is being incorporated into the everyday transactions of many universities, colleges and other institutions of learning. But it seems to me that a fundamental opportunity is being missed. That is to create a new institution which is adapted to the cyberspace medium. What would a Virtual University be like? Who would it serve and how would it work? Would it have a football team? The Virtual University is a global institution. It serves students from all over the world and might be patterned on the External Degree system of the University of London. In as much as it would offer degrees to students widely dispersed without their having to physically attend classes. Then again it might be patterned on Alternative Universities such as those that grew up in the Sixties. In that it is more open and fluid an organization than traditional universities. Let's sketch out what such an institution might look like. First the Virtual University is different from other Universities in that it is not divided into specialist departments. Its goal is to produce generalists not specialists and is dedicated to interdisciplinary studies. In this way it compliments existing university structures which are fractured by specialization. The virtual university is made up of research teams. Each team has members of different specialties on it and has a particular subject it is studying in an interdisciplinary manner. The research team is made up of at least three scholars with Ph.D.'s in different disciplines. Teams are probably no larger than ten scholars. Each team takes on a number of graduates and undergraduates. Graduates must have a Bachelors degree. Undergraduates do not yet have Bachelors degrees. Thus the ranking of members is dependent on their external specializations. The graduate and undergraduate students participate in the research of the core scholars. In the process, they are assessed based on their contribution and when a sufficient amount of original contributions are made the student is then given a virtual degree. The virtual degree indicates participation in the ongoing interactive interdisciplinary research. It does not replace the specialized degree but is an enhancement of that degree which shows the student interacted with scholars from many different disciplines and was able to learn from them and even perhaps teach them in turn as part of his contribution. The Virtual University is merely a network of these interdisciplinary research teams. The Virtual University serves as a means for teams to share their results. Each research team has a representative on the Assembly of the Virtual University. The Assembly votes on the policies and standards for the whole of the Virtual University. Each team has one vote. The team must reach a consensus on how to cast their vote. The central function of the University is the archiving and dissemination of team results. It acts as a clearing house for setting up teams and connecting people who are interested in research in the same subject. It administers the records of the students who participate. The Virtual University is really like a switchboard connecting scholars in all the Universities of the World encouraging them to work together in interdisciplinary ways and to breakdown the barriers between specialties. But the Virtual University is not tied to the Universities of the world either economically or institutionally. It would not be fulfilling its role if it were merely an arm of the existing University structure. Instead, the Virtual University is a catalyst for change within the world by connecting scholars throughout the world many of whom are not affiliated with any University or College. It is a mediator between the independent scholars and the academic community. It is a little known fact that in the beginning anyone who had a Ph.D. was able to grant a Ph.D. to someone else. Thus, the heart of the Virtual University is the independent research team which sets up its own research program and decides what requirements the students have to fulfill as they are participating in that program in order to get a degree. The virtual degrees are really signs of the students ability to network and participate in the research of the scholars who are working together. It is really just a means for others to get involved in the ongoing research of scholars who are actively working together. Today many scholars communicate over E-mail. But few actually carry out their research with others using this medium. The fact that people scattered all over the world can coordinate their work and work together using mailing lists and e-mail means that the ecology of scholarship is broken. The fact that each Real University can only have a few specialists in a certain area does not matter because these specialists can have their own forum. A research team has the whole world to search for people interested in the same subject from different disciplines. Once those few people have been located then it is just a matter of setting up the proper mailing lists or BBS forum for the work to proceed. For instance, thinknet core can be seen as a nascent research team. The topic of thinknet is cooperative thinking in cyberspace. Like thinknet the research team would set up its newsletter to publish partial results. Like thinknet the research team might have their BBS category on some home system to act as an archive. It might also have its associated cluster of Mailing lists some for general discussion others for special topics. The virtual university would collect the newsletters and reports from the team and route these to all the other teams on the network. What is missing from thinknet is the relation of student to teacher that is envisaged as a key ingredient of the Virtual University. The Virtual University may be seen as the lost heart of the academic world. The academic world is lost in specialization. Real degrees do not mean much when the different specialists who possess them cannot talk to each other or cooperate. Virtual degrees signify the ability to learn to talk to different specialists and cooperate with them in mutual research. Virtual Post-doctorates result from this cooperative research when other teams review the results of the cooperative work of one particular team. Virtual doctorates and masters, as well as bachelors result from the participation of undergraduates and graduates in the interdisciplinary research. Virtual degrees enhance Real degrees. They exist in a dimension orthogonal to that of the real degree. It is the dimension of cooperative thought, interdisciplinary research, and meta-disciplines like general systems theory and philosophy. Welcome to the Virtual University. Welcome to the network of nodes that are the intersections of all the specialties. Classes will begin when you realize the possibilities of this new medium for bringing people together who normally would never hear of each other isolated each in their own socio-ecological niche. If you are interested in participating in a inter-, multi- or trans-disciplinary research team then contact us at thinknet. .................................................................. NOTE: After writing this I was lucky enough to see what Jyrki Kuoppala is doing with the new groups alt.uu.xxxxxx. Clearly he has a similar idea and he has started to put his idea into action by setting up the Usenet University. I wish him well and though the effort seems somewhat disorganized right now it is perhaps a beginning of exactly the kind of organizaion I was alluding to above. Here is his FAQ on his efforts .................................................................. Xref: world alt.uu.announce:2 alt.config:9078 alt.education. distance:327 misc.education:5252 comp.edu:3376 alt.education. disabled:206 sci.edu:1757 alt.culture.usenet:167 Path: world!eff!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde !gatech!bloom-beacon!eru.mt.luth.se!lunic!sunic!mcsun!fuug!funic !nntp.hut.fi!usenet From: jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala) Newsgroups: alt.uu.announce,alt.config,alt.education.distance,misc. education,comp.edu,alt.education.disabled,sci.edu,alt.culture.usenet Subject: ADMIN: DOC: What's Usenet University; the current list of UU groups Keywords: self, distance, education, uu, volunteer Message-ID: <1992Aug2.150837.10610@nntp.hut.fi> Date: 2 Aug 92 15:08:37 GMT Followup-To: alt.uu.future Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland Lines: 294 Nntp-Posting-Host: laphroaig.cs.hut.fi [Followups directed to alt.uu.future] Contains the "what-is-uu" document (nic.funet.fi:/pub/doc/uu/what-is-uu) and a current list of UU groups (nic.funet.fi:/pub/doc/uu/newsgroups). ---------------------------------------- What is UU? Contents: 1. What is Usenet University? 2. What the name means and how to participate in UU 3. Goals and principles 4. Administration 5. Copyright on the articles and learning material 6. Technology 7. Disciplines or division of topics 8. Practical steps 1. What is Usenet University? Usenet University, or UU (not to be confused with Uppsala University) is, or more accurately will be, a society of people interested in learning, teaching or tutoring. There is no formal organization or funding at least as of yet, and the concept exists currently mostly in the newsgroup alt.uu.future which was created on June 12, 1992. It is the group for discussing the future of Usenet University, and discussions on alt.uu.future will to a large extent shape what the UU will become. Many people have already participated in the discussion and influenced the shaping of this document. (If you do not get alt.uu.future, contact your news administrator for more information if it's a problem with the propagation or some other reason - the administrator often can provide a newsgroup when requested). 2. What the name means and how to participate in UU "Usenet" refers to the global conferencing network used as a media or one of the medias for Usenet University, as well as the "spirit" of UU - UU is open to anyone who can access it, free for expressing ideas, is quite a bit anarchistic in nature, and thus as Usenet newsgroups UU will be what the participants cause it to be. "University" refers to the "community" aspect of UU, not so much to "university level" or "academic discipline", neither does it mean that there are specific plans for UU to become a university where you can get a certificate from. This doesn't mean to say that certificates or recognition of Usenet University by accepted academic would be unthinkable, just that it isn't central to the concept of UU at least at this point in the development. Certificates and recognition probably will come via cooperation with existing organization if they will. For now, Usenet University will operate under the "alt" hierarchy, as "alt.uu.*". It would be desirable to later move to a separate distribution, out from under alt when there will be numerous newsgroups for various areas of learning. Thus, there would be a separate distribution and hierarchy like (just an example) uu.future uu.lang.esperanto.beg uu.lang.esperanto.material uu.lang.esperanto.exercises uu.comp.lang.pascal.env.gnu uu.comp.lang.pascal.beg However, "uu" is already taken by Uppsala University. Alternative names possible for the distribution are World University (wu), Planetary University (pu), Virtual University etc. There will be time to discuss and decide this when the change to a separate distribution and hierarchy is made - for now the name is Usenet University and the hierarchy is alt.uu, ie. the hierarchy will be something like the above list with "alt." prepended. 3. Goals and principles One primary goal of UU is to use Usenet communications to offer participants possibilities to learn things, to educate themselves, to teach others, to exchange information on learning materials, tools and techniques as well as publish learning material itself. In this respect UU will aim to become a kind of "place to learn". Connected with this, a primary principle of UU is openness, to stay open for anyone passing by just willing to learn, with little formal qualifications or requirements. To try to commit to this principle much of the activity will happen on open newsgroups. It probably will be desirable to have some kind of classifications in some of the groups for "beginner" and "advanced" topics to avoid problems of participants having very different vocabularies, concepts, levels of expertise etc. and thus communications problems. To implement classification and make groups more worthwhile with moderated newsgroups, a possibility would be to have a matching unmoderated one from which "the cream" will be replicated on the moderated group. One important goal is to offer several alternative ways for learning. People learn best with different ways - some learn by reading books on their own, some by browsing around and experimenting, some prefer tutors or close teacher/student relationships, some prefer lectures/classes with strict structure, some learn by doing. All these should be provided with an opportunity to learn with the style they prefer - it might mean there would be several groups for one topic, using different methodologies. One goal is to create, organize and offer references to learning material, to maintain lists of literature, Usenet newsgroups, ftp sites and services, libraries and so on relevant to fields One goal is to offer discussion groups for students who learn by tossing ideas around and discussing them, asking each other and helping each other out. One possible goal is to create and archive learning material (tutorials, exercises) itself. One possible goal is to offer possibilities for tutors and students to find each other for email teaching. 4. Administration There are decisions to be made concerning the process of creation of newsgroups, possible moderation of them, how to divide topics and disciplines, how to handle possible (probable) flame wars and other possibly destructive phenomena, and so on. Some kind of a decision-making process will need to be established for these. To be compatible with the goals and principles of UU, some kind of a groupware decision-making support system would be useful to help the process. To better classify information exchange and to provide feedback for participants, some kind of accreditation / peer review system is desirable. Here again groupware mechanisms and tools would be useful for being compatible with the openness principles, dividing work and avoiding single point of failure. 5. Copyright on the articles and learning material According to the Berne convention, the author has the copyright on his or her work. If a base of learning material is created, copyright is a relevant issue - should a "Usenet University" trust be created which holds the copyright, should the authors have the copyright with some kind of a GNU-like copyright, should the authors have the copyright and give other only the right to copy the documents in the UU context, should the created documents be put in the public domain. There are lots of possibilities and at least if the aim is to create a big base of material some guidelines need to be established. 6. Technology Technology which people os Usenet have varies widely. Many have text-only 80 x 24 character displays, while many have workstations with big graphics screens with perhaps also color and sound, and software for multi-media email. This needs to be addressed - for topics like learning to speak languages, for example sound can be an essential part and transmitting sounds on UU would be very beneficial. Besides the capabilities of the media, access to on-line resources such as ftp servers, archie, www, wais servers, newsgroup archives and other services on the Internet varies. Some only have a Usenet feed with little possibility to access on-line services, some have very fast lines to the rest of the world and some are in between. These differences probably will divide discussions a bit - for learning of languages for example it could be useful to have a separate group for those who have sound capabilities, to avoid frustration on the part of those with no such access. 7. Disciplines or division of topics There are several possibilities for how to divide topics handled in UU. There is the discipline division of the scientific community, there are various classifications used by libraries, there is the Usenet newsgroup division, etc. It probably is not wise to use strictly just any one of these divisions, but it would seem useful to borrow from many of them. This is an issue which needs discussing. 8. Practical steps To get things rolling, we should discuss some suggestions for topics you think would be good as "prototype topics", with suggestions for group names. These topics should be ones for which there are enough people interested on to reach "critical mass". One possibility would be to take a topic for which there already is reference material for - some newsgroups on Usenet have excellent FAQs with literature references, answers to many questions, hints from old-timers etc. which could offer a good start for a tutorial on the topic. It probably will be desirable to have a few groups for each topic. An example division would be to have one group for generic discussions and one for material references / exercises / other "carefully-written" articles standing on their own. Alternatively a system of keywords in the Subject field could be adopted (like used in sci.virtual-worlds) to mark the type of each article, but for unmoderated groups it would be hard to maintain the practice. ---------------------------------------- Current newsgroups These new groups (created 22 July 1992) are part of the Usenet University. For further information on UU, see directory pub/doc/uu on the machine nic.funet.fi. A "material" group means that the group exists for postings of course material, announcements, pointers to material and resources, essays, etc. relevant to the "department" of the group and/or the topic. This group is for one-time articles / posts - discussions are _not_ suitable for this newsgroup but should instead be held in a corresponding .misc group. Followups should be directed and posted there. On some UU groups (where there is a volunteer teacher / teachers) the material will be mostly for course-like work, on others for self-study, on others the main info will be something else. The conventions will form as time passes and while there are none, a wide range of relevant postings will appear. Later, different styles of learning will perhaps spin off different newsgroups. A "misc" group exists for discussions on learning, followups on the "material" group articles, and other discussion relevant to the department or topic. For all departments / topics, there are as of yet no "material" groups but instead only .misc groups - in that case, articles fitting in the material group should be posted with "MATERIAL" as the first word in the Subject: field of the article. The following groups have been created 1992, July 22nd: alt.uu.lang.misc Language department of Usenet University This is a group for the "language department" of UU. This is the "main group" for learning languages, linguistics etc. - later there will be more specific groups for different topic in the field. alt.uu.math.misc Math department of Usenet University This is a group for the "math department" of UU. This is the "main group" for learning mathematics - later there will be more specific groups for different topic in the field. alt.uu.comp.misc Computer department of Usenet University This is a group for the "computer department" of UU. This is the "main group" for learning things to do with computers - later there will be more specific groups for different topic in the field. Both "computing science" and "using computers as tools" topics are suitable under this department, at first at least. Some of the computing science topics perhaps will fit better under math - the choice is left to each participant. alt.uu.lang.esperanto.misc Study of Esperanto in Usenet University This is a group for learning Esperanto. This is the "main group" for learning Esperanto - later there will be more specific groups for different topics in the field. alt.uu.misc.misc Misc. department of Usenet University This is a group for learning about topics not suitable for other groups of UU. This is the "catch-all" group, "misc department" of UU. alt.uu.virtual-worlds.misc Study of virtual worlds in Usenet University This is a group for learning about virtual worlds or virtual reality. alt.uu.tools Tools for Usenet University and education This is a group for discussing tools useful in UU and self-education / distance education, what tools are recommended to be used with UU, what tools are helpful, where to get such tools, etc. Examples of the tools include machinery for viewing languages other than English on computers, possible UU "courseware" (for studying UU course packages) etc. alt.uu.announce Announcements of Usenet University This is a group for announcements of UU. alt.uu.future Planning the future of Usenet University This functions as a group to discuss the future of UU, and currently also as a "misc" group in which generic meta-discussions of UU take place. The first UU group, created in June 1992. ---------------------------------------- Feel free to start using the UU groups! //Jyrki ----------------------------------------------------------------- POSTMODERN CULTURE pmc ----------------------------------------------------------------- A CALL FOR PAPERS POSTMODERN CULTURE is a peer-reviewed Editors: electronic journal of interdisciplinary Eyal Amiran criticism on contemporary literature, John Unsworth theory, and culture. It is distributed internationally, free of charge, as Book Review Editor: electronic mail; it is also available on Jim English disk and microfiche for a nominal sub- scription fee. PMC invites submission of Editorial Board: works in progress, book reviews, scripts, Kathy Acker poetry, fiction, and essays. Sharon Bassett Michael Berube Marc Chenetier ----------------------------------------- Greg Dawes | PMC ELECTRONIC TEXT AWARD: Each June, | R. Serge Denisoff | the editorial board of _Postmodern | Robert Detweiler | Culture_ will select an outstanding | Henry L. Gates, Jr. | critical or creative work from that | Joe Gomez | volume-year for the PMC electronic | Robert Hodge | text award, which carries a prize of | bell hooks | $500. | Susan Howe ----------------------------------------- E. Ann Kaplan Arthur Kroker Neil Larsen PMC also publishes free notices of events, Jerome J. McGann and carries notices for other publications Larysa Mykyta on an exchange basis. Send submissions by Chimalum Nwankwo electronic mail to Phil Novak Patrick O'Donnell Bitnet: PMC@NCSUVM Elaine Orr Internet: PMC@NCSUVM.CC.NCSU.EDU John Paine Marjorie Perloff Hard copy and disk submissions are also Mark Poster accepted and should be mailed to: Carl Raschke Mike Reynolds Postmodern Culture Avital Ronell Box 8105 Andrew Ross Raleigh, NC 27695-8105 Jorge Ruffinelli Susan M. Schultz Disk submission should be in ASCII text William Spanos or in WordPerfect; if this is not Tony Stewart possible, please indicate the operating Gary Lee Stonum system and word-processing program used. Chris Straayer We look forward to hearing from you. Paul Trembath Greg Ulmer ................................................................ Date: Fri, 31 Jan 1992 20:26:33 EST Sender: Postmodern Culture From: Editors of PMC Subject: CONTENTS 192 To: Multiple recipients of list PMC-LIST POSTMODERNCULTUREPOSTMODERNCULTURE P RNCU REPO ODER E P O S T M O D E R N P TMOD RNCU U EP S ODER ULTU E C U L T U R E P RNCU UR OS ODER ULTURE P TMODERNCU UREPOS ODER ULTU E an electronic journal P TMODERNCU UREPOS ODER E of interdisciplinary POSTMODERNCULTUREPOSTMODERNCULTURE criticism .................................................................. Volume 2, Number 2 (January, 1992) ISSN: 1053.1920 .................................................................. SPECIAL BOOK-REVIEW ISSUE Editors: Eyal Amiran John Unsworth Book Review Editor: Jim English, Issue Editor Managing Editor: Nancy Cooke List Manager: Chris Barrett Editorial Assistant: Mina Javaher .................................................................. CONTENTS AUTHOR & TITLE FNFT Masthead, Contents, Abstracts, CONTENTS 192 Instructions for retrieving files Roger Berger. Review of Adam, Ian, and Helen Tiffin, eds. _Past the Last Post: Theorizing Post-modernism and Post- colonialism_. Calgary: U Calgary P, 1990. Reviewed by Roger Berger. BERGER 192 Chris Connery. Review of Chow, Rey. _Woman and Chinese Modernity: The Politics of Reading Between West and East_. Minneapolis: U Minnesota P, 1991. CONNERY 192 Clifford L. Staples. Review of hooks, bell. _Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics_. Boston: South End Press, 1990. STAPLES 192 Douglas A. Davis. Review of Cixous, Helene. _"Coming to Writing" and Other Essays_. Ed. Deborah Jenson. Trans. Sarah Cornell, Deborah Jenson, Ann Liddle, Susan Sellers. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1991. DAVIS 192 Roe Norman. Review of Code, Lorraine. _What Can She Know? Feminist Theory and the Construction of Knowledge_. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1991. NORMAN 192 Susan Ross. Review of Flax, Jane. _Thinking Fragments: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and Postmodernism in the Contemporary West_. Berkeley: California UP, 1990. ROSS 192 John Batali. Review of Nye, Andrea. _Words of Power: A Feminist Reading of the History of Logic_. London: Routledge, 1990; Gross, Alan G. _The Rhetoric of Science_. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1990. BATALI 192 Robert C. Holub. Review of Norris, Christopher. _What's Wrong With Postmodernism? Critical Theory and the Ends of Philosophy_. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1990. HOLUB-1 192 Robert C. Holub. Review of Koelb, Clayton, ed. _Nietzsche as Postmodernist: Essays Pro and Contra_. Albany: SUNY P, 1990. HOLUB-2 192 Sharon Bassett. Review of Desmond, William. _Art and the Absolute: A Study of Hegel's Aesthetics_. Albany: SUNY P, 1986; _Desire, Dialectic, and Otherness_. New Haven: Yale UP, 1987; _Philosophy and Its Others: Ways of Being and Mind_. SUNY P, 1990. BASSETT 192 Renate Holub. Review of Norris, Christopher. _Spinoza and the Origin of Modern Critical Theory_. Cambridge: Basil Blackwell, 1991. RHOLUB 192 Neil Larsen. Review of Jameson, Fredric. _Late Marxism: Adorno, or the Persistence of the Dialectic_. London: Verso, 1990. LARSEN 192 Joseph Dumit. Review of Penley, Constance, and Andrew Ross, eds. _Technoculture_. Minneapolis: Minnesota UP, 1991. DUMIT 192 Lisa M. Heilbronn. Review of Kinder, Marsha. _Playing With Power in Movies, Television, and Video Games; From Muppet Babies to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles_. Berkeley: California UP, 1991. HEILBRON 192 James Morrison. Review of Horton, Andrew, ed. _Comedy/Cinema/Theory_. Berkeley: California UP, 1991. MORRISON 192 Susan Schultz. Review of Ashbery, John. _Flow Chart_. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991; Bronk, William. _Living Instead_. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1991. SCHULTZ 192 POPULAR CULTURE COLUMN Melynda Huskey, "Pee-Wee Herman and the Postmodern Picaresque" POP-CULT 192 ANNOUNCEMENTS NOTICE-1 192 NOTICE-2 192 ...............END OF CONTENTS 192 FOR PMC 2.2................. Date: Sat, 30 May 1992 17:04:54 EDT Reply-To: Editors of PMC Sender: Postmodern Culture From: Editors of PMC Subject: CONTENTS 592 To: Multiple recipients of list PMC-LIST Status: OR POSTMODERNCULTUREPOSTMODERNCULTURE P RNCU REPO ODER E P O S T M O D E R N P TMOD RNCU U EP S ODER ULTU E C U L T U R E P RNCU UR OS ODER ULTURE P TMODERNCU UREPOS ODER ULTU E an electronic journal P TMODERNCU UREPOS ODER E of interdisciplinary POSTMODERNCULTUREPOSTMODERNCULTURE criticism .................................................................. Volume 2, Number 3 (May, 1992) ISSN:1053-1920 .................................................................. CONTENTS AUTHOR & TITLE FNFT Masthead, Contents, Abstracts, CONTENTS 592 Instructions for retrieving files Russell A. Potter, "Edward Schizohands: POTTER 592 The Postmodern Gothic Body" Fred Pfeil, "Revolting Yet Conserved: Family PFEIL 592 %Noir% in _Blue Velvet_ and _Terminator 2_" Tessa Dora Addison and Audrey Extavasia, ADD-EXT 592 "Fucking (With Theory) for Money: Toward an Interrogation of Escort Prostitution" Rochelle Owens, "Drum and Whistle" and OWENS 592 "Black Stems," Two Poems from _LUCA: Discourse on Life & Death_ Donald F. Theall, "Beyond t Orality/Literacy THEALL 592 Dichotomy: James Joyce and the Pre-History of Cyberspace" Walter Kalaidjian, "Mainlining Postmodernism: KALAIDJI 592 Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, and the Art of Intervention" Paul McCarthy, "Postmodern Pleasure and MCCARTHY 592 Perversity: Scientism and Sadism" POPULAR CULTURE COLUMN: Cathy Griggers, "Lesbian Bodies in the Age of POP-CULT 592 (Post)Mechanical Reproduction" REVIEWS: Terry Collins, "The Vietnam War, Reascendant REVIEW-1 592 Conservatism, White Victims," review of _The Vietnam War and American Culture_, ed. John Carlos and Rick Berg, and _Fourteen Landing Zones: Approaches to Vietnam War Literature_, ed. Philip K. Jason. Michael W. Foley, review of _Post-Modernism REVIEW-2 592 and the Social Sciences: Insights, Inroads, and Intrusions_, by Pauline Marie Rosenau. Ursula K. Heise, "Becoming Postmodern?" REVIEW-3 592 review of _Sequel to History: Postmodernism and the Crisis of Representational Time_, by Elizabeth Deeds Ermarth. Edward M. Jennings, "The Text is Dead; Long REVIEW-4 592 Live The Techst," review of _Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Literary Theory and Technology_, by George P. Landow. Matthew Mancini, review of _Thinking Across REVIEW-5 592 the American Grain: Ideology, Intellect, and the New Pragmatism_, by Giles Gunn. Meryl Altman and Keith Nightenhelser, review of REVIEW-6 592 _Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud_, by Thomas Laqueur. Mark Poster, review of _Michel Foucault_, by REVIEW-7 592 Didier Eribon. Linda Ray Pratt, "Speaking in Tongues: Dead REVIEW-8 592 Elvis and the Greil Quest," review of _Dead Elvis: A Chronicle of a Cultural Obsession_, by Greil Marcus. Rei Terada, "The Pressures of Merely REVIEW-9 592 Sublimating," review of _American Sublime: The Genealogy of a Poetic Genre_, by Rob Wilson. Announcements and Advertisements NOTICES 592 ................................................................ ABSTRACTS Russell A. Potter, "Edward Schizohands: The Postmodern Gothic Body" ABSTRACT: In the conjunction between the gothic body of Edward in Tim Burton's film _Edward Scissorhands_ and the anti-Oedipal Body without Organs in Deleuze and Guattari's _Anti-Oedipus_, this essay posits a common machine, that of the fragmentary, persecuting Gothic body. Whether in James Whale's 1931 film _Frankenstein_ or in 1991's _Body Parts_, the partial body appears again and again as the persecuting agent of a society founded upon the monolithically Oedipal nuclear family. This constitution of this body, with its scars and sutures, is in fact fundamentally Anti-Oedipal; when organs do not stay in place, where is an erogenous zone to go? This essay thus offers a reading not only of _Edward Scissorhands_ and its filmic and novelistic precursors,but also of the postmodern suburbanity which beings from Frankenstein to Edward continue to invade. --RAP Fred Pfeil, "Revolting Yet Conserved: Family %Noir% in _Blue Velvet_ and _Terminator 2_" ABSTRACT: In the new Hollywood, quintessential site of the intersection between the flexible specialization of post-Fordist production and the free-floating ideologemes-turned-syntax of postmodernism, the transgressive energies and subversive formal practices that first animated and defined %film noir% may be most alive and well in a new and even perverse combination with other similarly deracinated formal and thematic elements from other ex- genres of film. In contrast to classic %noir%, which was non- or even anti-domestic, this newer %noir% includes, and indeed is centered on, home and family, even as it decenters and problematizes both. Through a look at two successful recent films, _Blue Velvet_ and _Terminator 2_, I mean to show how home and family are being destabilized, "%noir%-ized" in both--dissolved into a semic flow or play of boundaries from which, paradoxically, those same categories re-emerge with renewed half-life. --FP Tessa Dora Addison and Audrey Extavasia, "Fucking (With Theory) for Money: Toward an Interrogation of Escort Prostitution" ABSTRACT: This essay is intended as an introductory interrogation of the terrain of escort prostitution, mobilizing terms from both _The Telephone Book_ by Avital Ronell and _A Thousand Plateaus_ by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. --TDA & AE Donald F. Theall, "Beyond the Orality/Literacy Dichotomy: James Joyce and the Pre-History of Cyberspace" ABSTRACT: _Finnegans Wake_ articulates a radical modernist or postmodernist theory of poetics and communication, based on gesture and tactility, essential to understanding cyberspace and the limitations of the orality/literacy dichotomy. Joyce's impact upon theorists like Derrida, Eco, or McLuhan contributes to understanding the development of VR out of electromechanical technologies and high modernism. --DFT Walter Kalaidjian, "Mainlining Postmodernism: Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, and the Art of Intervention" ABSTRACT: Taking up the "new times" of postmodernity, this essay considers the political resources and limits of cultural critique afforded by Kruger's appropriation of advertising signage and Holzer's work in light emitting diode board technology, both within museum culture and at street level. The essay compares their interventions to the more communal, socioaesthetic praxes of Greenpeace and ACT UP. --WK Paul McCarthy, "Postmodern Pleasure and Perversity: Scientism and Sadism" ABSTRACT: The project of this essay is to provide a theoretical basis for ethical-political resistance to postmodern perversity. Through a comparison of Deleuze & Guattari's (1987) _A Thousand Plateaus_ to de Sade's prototypical deconstructionism, this essay traces the nature and consequences of the circulation of desire in a postmodern order of things (an order implicitly modeled on a repressed archetype of the new physics' fluid particle flows), and it reveals a complicity between scientism, which underpins the postmodern condition, and the sadism of incessant deconstruction, which heightens the intensity of the pleasure-seeking moment in postmodernism. --PM ................................................................. TO RETRIEVE SINGLE ITEMS LISTED ABOVE, send a mail message to listserv@ncsuvm or listserv@ncsuvm.cc.ncsu.edu containing as its one and only line the command get [fn ft] pmc-list f=mail (replace [fn ft] with the filename and filetype, as listed in the table of contents, for the file you want to receive). There should be no blank lines, spaces, or other text preceding this line. TO RETRIEVE THE WHOLE ISSUE as a package, send a mail message to listserv@ncsuvm or listserv@ncsuvm.cc.ncsu.edu with the command get pmcv2n3 package pmc-list f=mail If you request the issue as a package, please make certain you have sufficient virtual disk space on your e-mail account to receive it (at least half a megabyte). More detailed instructions are available in the file NEWUSER PREFACE: to retrieve this file, send a mail message to listserv@ncsuvm or listserv@ncsuvm.cc.ncsu.edu with the command get newuser preface pmc-list f=mail If none of the above works for you, contact the editors. _Postmodern Culture_ uses only ASCII text (the character-code common to all personal computers): this means that readers can download the text of the journal from the mainframe (where mail is received) to any personal computer and import it into almost all word-processing programs. Text in the journal uses a 65- character line, so you should set your margins accordingly before importing journal files into a word-processing program. .................................................................. _POSTMODERN CULTURE_ is published three times a year (September, January, and May) using the Revised LISTSERV program ((c) Eric Thomas 1986, Ecole Centrale de Paris). It is distributed to more than 1,800 subscribers worldwide from an IBM mainframe at North Carolina State University, and is published with support from the NCSU Libraries, the NCSU Computing Center, the NCSU Research Office, and the NCSU Department of English. Special thanks to Chuck Kesler of NCSU Engineering Computer Operations. _Postmodern Culture_ is a member of the Conference of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ) and of the Association of Electronic Scholarly Journals (AESJ). .................................................................. SUBSCRIPTION to the journal in its electronic-mail form is free. Each issue is available on disk and microfiche as well. Disk and fiche rates are $15/year for an individual and $30/year for an institution. For disks or fiche mailed to Canada add $3 postage; outside North America, add $7. Single issues are available for $6 (U.S.), $7 (Canada) or $8 (elsewhere). Postal correspondence, payment for subscription, and books for review should be sent to: Postmodern Culture Box 8105 NCSU Raleigh, NC 27695-8105 Electronic-text submissions and requests for e-mail subscription can be sent to the journal's editorial address (pmc@ncsuvm or pmc@ncsuvm.cc.ncsu.edu). Using the same addresses, readers may also subscribe free of charge to PMC-TALK, an open discussion group for issues relating to the journal's contents and to post- modernism in general. SUBMISSIONS to the journal can be made by electronic mail, on disk, or in hard copy; disk submissions should be in WordPerfect or ASCII format, but if this is not possible please indicate the program and operating system used. The current MLA format is recommended for documentation in essays; a list of the text- formatting conventions used by _Postmodern Culture_ for ASCII text is available on request. ................................................................ COPYRIGHT: Unless otherwise noted, copyrights for the texts which comprise this issue of _Postmodern Culture_ are held by their authors. The compilation as a whole is Copyright (c) 1992 by _Postmodern Culture_, all rights reserved. Items published by _Postmodern Culture_ may be freely shared among individuals, but they may not be republished in any medium without express written consent from the author(s) and advance notification of the editors. Issues of _Postmodern Culture_ may be archived for public use in electronic or other media, as long as each issue is archived in its entirety and no fee is charged to the user; any exception to this restriction requires the written consent of the editors of _Postmodern Culture_. .................END OF CONTENTS 592 FOR PMC 2.3................. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ELECTRONIC JOURNAL ----------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1992 18:56:00 EDT Sender: Electronic Journal for Humanists From: EJOURNAL%ALBNYVMS.BITNET@pucc.Princeton.EDU Subject: _EJournal_ Volume 2 Number 2 _______ _________ __ / _____/ /___ ___/ / / / /__ / / ______ __ __ __ ___ __ ___ _____ / / / ___/ __ / / / __ / / / / / / //__/ / //__ \ /___ \ / / / /____ / /__/ / / /_/ / / /_/ / / / / / / / / /__// / / /______/ /______/ /_____/ /_____/ /_/ /_/ /_/ \___/_/ /_/ June, 1992 _EJournal_ Volume 2 Issue 2 ISSN# 1054-1055 2545 Subscribers in 37 Countries An Electronic Journal concerned with the implications of electronic networks and texts. University at Albany, State University of New York ejournal@albany.bitnet There are 760 lines in this issue. CONTENTS: Editorial 1: Should we say goodbye to "text"? Editorial 2: Writing as reward, not punishment LITERACY FOR THE NEXT GENERATION: Writing Without Handwriting by David Coniam Chinese University of Hong Kong DEPARTMENTS: Summary of Network Commands Letters (policy) Reviews (policy) Supplements to previous texts (policy) About _EJournal_ PEOPLE: Board of Advisers, Consulting Editors [l. 39] .................................................................. This electronic publication and its contents are (c) copyright 1992 by _EJournal_. Permission is hereby granted to give away the journal and its contents, but no one may "own" it. Any and all financial interest is hereby assigned to the acknowledged authors of individual texts. This notification must accompany all distribution of _EJournal_. ................................................................. Editorial 1 - Should we say goodbye to "text"? _EJournal_ began as a strictly "text" journal, but the nature of text is changing. _EJournal_ started out to be a place where people could discuss the kinds of changes in "writing" that the electronic screen would encourage. Even though we expressed interest in text "broadly defined," we were still thinking mostly in images of "words on a page." We also wanted to sidestep as many print-journal conventions as we could. There would be no deadlines set by printers' schedules, no straightjackets of layout or "making up a book" or formatting. Why accept the constrictions imposed by a superseded delivery mechanism? So we worked with one essay per issue, a publish-when-ready approach, and plain-vanilla ASCII. Now, however, ASCII and the connotations of "text" are beginning to constrict our perception. "Text" is linked too closely with "print" and "printing" to suit the scope of electronic display. Even "hypertext," in so many ways properly dislocating and descriptive, (i. e., the three-dimensional image embedded in "hyper"), is somewhat limiting now that sound and motion can be included in what we transmit and display. What then should we call that stuff, those sequences of phosphor images and digitized wave forms that we are transmitting and receiving and messing around with in the Matrix? I propose "display" as a useful term. If its appearance didn't make you blink and back up in the second sentence of the paragraph above, then it might serve until a more obvious replacement slides into general use. Perhaps some analogue of "recording" will eventually dominate, but for now "display" seems suitable even though it privileges the visible over the audible. In any case, even if we don't dismiss the outmoded word "text" all at once, _EJournal_'s commitment to challenging inky-paper conventions continues. We look forward to opportunities to experiment with essays (and make-believe) that contain a-textual displays, and to essays addressing the ramifications of such a change in the distribution of imagination and information. Ted Jennings [l. 81] .................................................................. [NOTE: MATERIAL DELETED FROM EJOURNAL HERE, SUBSCRIBE TO SEE IT ALL kdp] .................................................................. ................................. Departments .................... .................................................................. SUMMARY OF NETWORK COMMANDS: To accomplish (for example): Send to: This message: Getting Contents/Abstracts LISTSERV@ALBANY.BITNET GET EJRNL INDEX Getting a *list* of all files LISTSERV@ALBANY.BITNET INDEX EJRNL Getting Volume 1 Number 1 LISTSERV@ALBANY.BITNET GET EJRNL V1N1 Subscribing to _EJournal_ LISTSERV@ALBANY.BITNET SUB EJRNour Name Mailing to our "office" EJOURNAL@ALBANY.BITNET Your message... .................................................................... About letters: _EJournal_ is willing publish letters to the editor. But at this point we make no promises about how many, which ones, or what format. Because the "Letters" column of a periodical is a habit of the paper environment, we can't predict exactly what will happen in pixel space. For instance, _EJournal_ readers can send outraged objections to our essays directly to the authors. Also, we can publish substantial counterstatements as articles in their own right, or as "Supplements." Even so, there will probably be some brief, thoughtful statements that appear to be of interest to many subscribers. When there are, they will appear as "Letters." ................................................................... About reviews: _EJournal_ is willing to publish reviews of almost anything that seems to fit under our broad umbrella: the implications of electronic networks and texts. We do not solicit and cannot provide review copies of fiction, prophecy, critiques, other texts, programs, hardware, lists or bulletin boards. But if you would like to bring any publicly available information to our readers' attention, send your review (any length) to us, or ask if writing one sounds to us like a good idea. [l. 673] ................................................................. About "supplements": _EJournal_ plans to experiment with ways of revising, responding to, re- working, or even retracting the texts we publish. Authors who want to address a subject already broached --by others or by themselves-- may send texts, preferably brief, that we will consider publishing under the "Supplements" heading. Proposed "supplements" will not go through full, formal editorial review. Whether this "Department" will operate like a delayed-reaction bulletin board or like an expanded letters-to-the-editor space, or whether it will be withdrawn in favor of a system of appending supplemental material to archived texts, or will take on an electronic identity with no direct print- oriented analogue, will depend on what readers/writers make of the opportunity. ................................................................... About _EJournal_: _EJournal_ is an all-electronic, Bitnet/Internet distributed, peer-reviewed, academic periodical. We are particularly interested in theory and practice surrounding the creation, transmission, storage, interpretation, alteration and replication of electronic text. We are also interested in the broader social, psychological, literary, economic and pedagogical implications of computer-mediated networks. The journal's essays will be available free to Bitnet/Internet/Usenet addresses. Recipients may make paper copies; _EJournal_ will provide authenticated paper copy from our read-only archive for use by academic deans or others. Individual essays, reviews, stories-- texts --sent to us will be disseminated to subscribers as soon as they have been through the editorial process, which will also be "paperless." We expect to offer access through libraries to our electronic Contents, Abstracts, and Keywords, and to be indexed and abstracted in appropriate places. Writers who think their texts might be appreciated by _EJournal_'s audience are invited to forward files to EJOURNAL@ALBANY.BITNET . If you are wondering about starting to write a piece for to us, feel free to ask if it sounds appropriate. There are no "styling" guidelines; we would like to be a little more direct and lively than many paper publications, and less hasty and ephemeral than most postings to unreviewed electronic spaces. We read ASCII; we look forward to experimenting with other transmission formats and protocols. Back issues of _EJournal_ are available from a Fileserver at Albany. A Table of Contents listing, along with abstracts, can be obtained by sending the message GET EJRNL INDEX to the *LIST* address: LISTSERV@ALBANY.BITNET. To get a specific back issue, note its filename and send the message GET to the *LIST* address: LISTSERV@ALBANY.BITNET. [Note: Sending the message "index ejrnl" to the List address will call forth an unhelpfully crude listing of all the issues by volume and issue number.] ................................................................... Board of Advisors: Stevan Harnad, Princeton University Dick Lanham, University of California at Los Angeles Ann Okerson, Association of Research Libraries Joe Raben, City University of New York Bob Scholes, Brown University Harry Whitaker, University of Quebec at Montreal ................................................................. Editor: Ted Jennings, English, University at Albany Managing Editor: Ron Bangel,University at Albany State University of New York University Center at Albany Albany, NY 12222 USA ----------------------------------------------------------------- NETJAM Craig Latta ----------------------------------------------------------------- NetJam provides a means for people to collaborate on musical compositions, by sending Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) and other files (such X patchers and notated scores) to each other, mucking about with them, and resending them. All those with MIDI-compatible (and other interesting) equipment, access to emailing and compression facilities and to the Internet (send mail as below for details), and who are interested in making music are encouraged to participate. All participant and composition information is documented, and the most actions, such as subscription, submission, translation, and information distribution, are automated. NetJam is platform-independent, so users of Macintoshes, PCs, Amigas, Ataris, and machines running UNIX-variants may all communicate with each other. There are currently 74 participants, from all over the world. NetJam has branched out from its initial incarnation to support {soft/hard}ware other than sequencers. For example, many participants have access to several interesting sound synthesis programs, like CSound for the NeXT. In addition, NetJam archives sampler and MAX patcher data. Any data relating to art and music is fair game. Most NetJam activity takes place via email, in which participants collaborate at their own pace on works. Recently, however, a Wide-Area MIDI Network was implemented, so real-time interaction is now possible. Submissions, participant info, and other data is archived on scam.Berkeley.EDU (128.32.138.1), where it is available via anonymous ftp. To receive the document from which this blurb is extracted (and which explains NetJam at length) send mail to netjam-request@xcf, with a subject line containing "request for info". Articles about NetJam have also appeared in the Computer Music Journal (15/3), and the Leonardo Music Journal (1/1). We look forward to hearing from you. Craig Latta musician and moderator ----------------------------------------------------------------- BOOK REVIEW: CYBERSPACE FRIST STEPS kdp ----------------------------------------------------------------- CYBERSPACE: FIRST STEPS edited by Michael Benedikt Cambridge MA: MIT Press 1991 91-27372; isbn 0-262-02327-X; QC173.59.S65C93 Introduction -- Michael Benedikt Academy Leader -- William Gibson Old Rituals of New Space: Rites de Passage and William Gibson's Cultural Model of Cyberspace -- David Tomas Mind is a Leaking Rainbow -- Nicole Stenger The Erotic Ontology of Cyberspace -- Michael Heim Will the Real Body Please Stand Up?: Boundary Stories about Virtual Cultures -- Allucaquere Rosanne Stone Cyberspace: Some Proposals -- Michael Benedkt Liquid Architectures of Cyberspace -- Marcos Novak Giving Meaning to Place: Semantic Spaces -- Alan Wexelblat The Lessons of Lucasfilm's Habitat -- Chip Morningstar & F. Randall Farmer Collaborative Engines for Multiparticipant Cyberspace -- Carl Tollander Notes the Structure of Cyberspace and the Ballistic Actors Model -- Tim McFadden Virtual Worlds: No Interface to Design -- Meredeth Bricken Corporate Virtual Workspace -- Steve Pruitt & Tom Barrett Making Reality a Cyberspace -- Wendy A. Kellog, John M. Carrol, & John T. Richards This book is an excellent introduction to the competing concepts of cyberspace. It contains many points of view and most of them are well articulated. Of special interest is Michael Benedikt's 'Cyberspace: Some Proposals' which is a fascinating tour of some possibilities for the development of the architecture of the cyberspace realm. The book as a whole reflects an emphasis on the viewpoint of Architects on the potentials of cyberspace. However, these are not your run of the mill architects. These are architects who have flown into a new dimension. They are definitely visionaries. But the book is not limited to this perspective. Michael Heim has a fascinating essay in which he traces the roots of Cyberspace back to the philosophy of Leibniz. I recommend this book highly for anyone who has found most introductions to this new medium rather shallow. This book is testimony to the fact that it is a serious new discipline which some people are thinking hard about. .................................................................. *COMMENTARY* Most of that thinking about cyberspace to date revolves around the image of the cybernaut navigating through an information rich world. Little thought has been given to the fact that information is worthless unless it is understood. The emphasis must switch from the concept of accessing and possessing mountains of information to the work of understanding and distilling this information into quality chunks that are easily absorbed. This is where my own concept of the thoughtSpace becomes germane. The thoughtSpace is all about mutual understanding. Without that, mountains of easily accessible information is useless. The thoughtSpace is the instantiation of a Universe of Discourse. Within that realm a small group of people interested in the same subject attempt to understand the available information together. They produce digests, compilations, summaries, and white papers which represent the result of their mutual exploration of the information landscape. Working together is dependent on thinking together. Unless we learn to think together in this new medium our work will be disjointed and the information will remain external to ourselves. There is a big difference between information and knowledge. Gaining information is easy compared with producing knowledge within our selves through intensive thinking. The thoughtSpace allows this to happen mutually so that the information space becomes meaningful and the workspace produces productive of significant advances in understanding as well as efficiently producing normal products. The product of knowledege workers is essentially different from information processing. Information processing does not call for creative transformation. Knowledge always involves going beyond the information given. Knowledge workers are those who provide the understanding of what the information means. When they work together they build a thoughtSpace within a particular universe of discourse. We need to begin to build these thoughtSpaces and the universe of discourses that are their context. The thinknet essay and discussion channels, the thinknet category on the WELL, and the concept of the Virtual University each small steps in this direction. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ON THOUGHT CAPSULES kdp ----------------------------------------------------------------- What follows is a thought capsule about the concept of thought capsules. It has been embedded within the newsletter with its own start and end delimiters. =========================START==TCapsule.001===================== ------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------ THOUGHT CAPSULE --------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------ CAPSULE NAME: Thought Capsule about 'thought capsules' IDENTIFIER: THINKNET-apeiron-911209a-1.0 AUTHOR: Kent D. Palmer Ph.D. E-MAIL: palmer@world.std.com [or palmer@well.sf.ca.us] REPLY TO: discuss@world.std.com PHONE: ADDRESS: PO BOX 8383 Orange CA 92664-8383 USA DISCIPLINES: Philosophy, Communications, Interdisciplinary, Systems theory KEYWORDS: thought, idea, meme, concept, philosophy, electronic mail, networking SUBJECT: The thought capsule is a way to embody individual thoughts in an electronic message form for personal publishing of ones ideas in order to elicit responses of others and which creates a permanent record which can be built upon in the future. CONTEXT: The thinknet project is experimenting with group thinking processes in the electronic network medium. OVERVIEW: Thought capsules are a means of structuring information for easy assimilation and reproduction. Thought capsules communicate a single thought to those participating in communal thought. It allows isolation of individual ideas for easy absorption and well defined response. By this means the dialectical discussion may be sharpened, and thought capsules like comets will have their trail of messages which contain the reactions to them by members of the group. EXPOSITION: I have been thinking about the problem of structuring thought in cybertime [2]. It seems to me that we need some way of organizing out thoughts so we can keep track of them and so we can relate them to each other dialectically in order to build on them. Having been introduced to the concept of Meme by Elan Moritz I started thinking that perhaps what we need is an electronic vehicle for single memes. So I come up with the idea of a THOUGHT CAPSULE. A thought capsule is one way to embody a Meme [1] adapted to the electronic text media. A thought capsule will attempt to present a single Idea, or concept, or theory in such a way that it is easily absorbed and reacted to by its receivers on the network. The reaction would be in the form of message trails to the thought capsule. A message trail may either be unstructured reactions, structured reactions using the thinknet protocol, or other though capsules. This thought capsule is a meta-capsule as it is a though capsule about though capsules. Thought capsules would strive for brevity and clarity of the thought being expressed. That thought may be original or just a representation of someone else's thought appearing in the literature somewhere. But in the form of a thought capsule that thought can be uniquely identified and compared to other thoughts. It is possible for a thought capsule to be a building block in a larger theoretical structure. A though capsule can refer to other though capsules to form a hypertext network of ideas such as that proposed by Cliff Josylin of the PRINCIPIA CYBERNETICA PROJECT. Each though capsule will have a unique identifier like the ISBN. Through this identifier the though capsule will be able to be referred to uniquely for reference by other though capsules. The identifier is constructed of the name of the mailing list it is first published on; the authors initials or special publication identifier; the date in YYMMDD form with letter for each TCapsule published on that date; and a unique number assigned by the author. The number assigned by the author should contain a decimal to show the version number of the particular thought packet which may be updated or rereleased in some modified form. Each author keeps his own database of thought capsules. If a person reading a recent though capsule wants to see a referred to though capsule he can request it of the author at the email address given by the author. Eventually it would be interesting to have some archive of though capsules besides the author's own archive for posterity. Notice that there are several ways to retrieve the thought capsule which gives us access to the history of ideas under the discussion: Author Date YYMMDDn Number of capsule n.m Name of Capsule Discipline Keywords Words in Subject All words in capsule By articles or books referred to. Thinknet will undertake to validate that the user initials or special author's publishing identifier is never duplicated. You can register your identifier by sending a message of the following form to thinknet@world.std.com REGISTER listname-authorId FOR YourFullName Registration must be accompanied by a US mail postal address. There may be a nominal fee for this service. The point is that there must be some name server to assure non-duplication of identifiers. Perhaps in the future it could be done with a listserv program. But until then as long as it is manually maintained then a fee may be charged. If that combination has been taken by someone else that has been registered then you will be notified. Basically this creates a name space for the publication of thought capsules which are unique. By registering your publication name wherever you move people who find TCapsule on the networks can locate the author and the thought capsules you refer to in your own thought capsules. Thought capsules are a way for us to publish our thoughts one at a time on the electronic medium in order to get reaction from others while retaining the rights to our ideas. It provides a way for us to think together by giving us a permanent infrastructure to build on. I can refer to the thoughts of others or my own individually and allow others to do the same with my ideas. This makes my thoughts accessible without giving them away. Creating a though capsule will allow one to claim originality for an idea while showing it to others without having to wait for it to appear in print. It allows a personal publishing of ideas in an electronic form. The author can publish a series of thought capsules and then take these and republish them in print as they are or reweave the thoughts into a paper or book as they like having already tested the idea on others in electronic form. The comets trail of comments on a particular though capsule should contain the following information. ORIGINAL AUTHOR: author's-name ORIGINAL ADDRESS: email-address ORIGINAL CAPSULE NAME: though-capsule-name ORIGINAL CAPSULE IDENTIFIER: thought-capsule-identifier RESPONSE AUTHOR: responder's-name RESPONSE ADDRESS: email-address RESPONSE SUBJECT: short-subject-name The comment should either be freeform or use the thinknet protocol. It should be published on the same mailing list as the author published his though capsule on. Or it could be sent to the author as a direct comment and the author could keep all the comments or republish them on the lists that he originally published his thought capsule on. Thought capsules that respond to or use other authors though capsules should identify them by identifier in the TCLINKS section of the thought capsule. A though capsule allows ideas to persist on the network. They may be recalled and reposted when appropriate. Now ideas are embedded in freeform text and access to them after they are first published is almost impossible. Thought capsules allow direct dialectical exchange between those who are thinking together on the network. They allow people to clearly identify their ideas and post them in a form that is likely to be absorbed and taken up by others into their own thought. Thought capsules allow allow us to see the evolution of our thought and its interactions with the thoughts of others in an explicit fashion. It allows us to think 'out loud' in a public electronic arena and see the full scope of the market place of ideas in action as we receive though packets of others and react to them in our own thought. It gives us an atomic level of organization to our group thinking processes and frees thoughts from their normal position embedded in texts from which they are difficult to extract. Thought capsules can be at any level of abstraction. The thought capsules at the same level of abstraction can be identified together and thus compared to the same level of abstraction in other peoples hierarchy of thought patterns. Thought capsules may function as working papers which go through several versions as the idea, concept or theory is honed and fine tuned through the interaction with others. As with all working papers the whole point is to get the idea down on paper and then to refine it through successive versions. Therefore the author may publish different versions of the same though capsule as important changes in the basic concept occur. In that case there should be a section describing the difference from the last version and the history of the versions. It is also a medium in which several authors can work together by producing some capsules in common and others independently to fit into an overall theoretical structure. Thought capsules can be thought of as conceptual building blocks that snap together to form complex theoretical structures built by one or more people. Though capsules may contain critique of others ideas, or be summaries of sets of ideas from different disciplines. Though capsules are a very flexible publishing form specifically geared to the electronic medium. All thought capsules concerning philosophy, systems theory, meta-theory within a discipline or interdisciplinary studies can be published on the essay channel which is a moderated mailing list dedicated to deep thought in the cybertime environment. [The address is 'submissions@world.std.com'.] DIAGRAM: {Diagram explanation goes here, actual system independent graphics goes after restrictions as an appendix.} FURTHER WORK: There is a lot of work that needs to be done to make it possible for deeper thought and discussion to go on in the cybertime environment. This is only a first step. The THINKNET newsletter will carry further updates on the experiments with the discussion & essay mailing lists as well as other related activities carried on Bulletin Board Systems and on internet matrix. You will notice that there is a diagram section for this though capsule. This is one specific point where future work needs to be done which will allow diagrams to be incorporated into though capsules using some system independent graphics standard. TCLINKS: None. {here links to other thought capsules would be made explicit.} NOTES: 1) A 'meme' is an idea which replicates itself easily within the cultural milieu. 2) Cybertime is the complement to cyberspace. Even though cyberspace does not exist for most of us the time we spend dealing with electronic BBSs and networks can be called cybertime. 3) For thinknet protocol see issue 1 of thinknet newsletter. REFERENCES: Princypia Cybernetica Project: Cliff Joslyn et al. -- newsletters 1 & 2 Journal Of Ideas: Elan Moritz {concept of meme} {References may have the form: AUTHOR, A.N.; TITLE; SERIAL Volume (number) year; pages AUTHOR, A.N.; TITLE; (City: PUBLISHER; DATE) COMMENTS: {Comments of others might be directly incorporated into the successive versions of the thought capsule.} ................................................................ RESTRICTIONS: Copyright 1991 Kent Palmer. All rights reserved. This though capsule is conceptual shareware. It may be copied in its entirety and distributed freely without change of form or content on to any electronic text system. It may not appear on paper or any other permanent media except as single copies for personal study. It may not be sold except by the author. The all rights to the idea contained in the though capsule if original is retained by the author of the capsule. You are welcome to use the idea as long as you attribute it to the author by direct reference in a footnote in whatever you write concerning that idea. If idea contained in the thought capsule is not original with the author then direct attribution to the original author should be made by anyone using the idea. Permission to archive this thought capsule for longer than a year from the identification date or keep it for reference in a database must be obtained in writing from the author. The basic idea of conceptual shareware is the promotion of the spread of ideas within the electronic network and Bulletin Board medium by making them accessible, reproducible, and free, but retaining the copyrights on all external other mediums, such as printed paper, and for long term storage in electronic systems. This makes thought capsules ephemera of the electronic textual medium. The long term archival storage of the text remains in the hands of the author. You can request the text from the author at any time if referred to the thought capsule by another source. The right to publish and copy on all non-electronic textual media is retained by the author. The intellectual property rights are retained by the author. The write to sell the all derived works is retained by the author. The author is basically lending the thought capsule to others for a period of less than one year for them to comment on and react to the contents of the thought capsule. This is intended to promote the interchange of ideas within the cyber-thoughtspace while still promoting intellectual ownership rights. The identifier used to identify the author who has published this thought capsule may be registered with thinknet. For information send e-mail to 'thinknet@world.std.com' or write PO BOX 8383 ORANGE CA 92664 USA. ................................................................ APPENDICES: APPENDIX 1 Glossary MEME -- a cultural artifact that is easily duplicated and spread. THINKNET -- A project to explore deep thought in cybertime. APPENDIX 2 Diagram {system independent graphics language code goes here} APPENDIX 3 Version History Version 1 -- original. APPENDIX N ???????? =========================END==TCapsule.001======================= Note from Editor: I have started a series of thoughtCapsules on Emergent Systems Process philosophy which is posted in the thinknet conference on on the WELL. It is accessible to members in the directory /well/info/thinknet which is accessible only to members of the thinknet conference. The thoughtCapsule is a proposed format for essays sent to the essay channel. It is just a suggestion. THIS ISSUE CONTAINS 2082 LINES 13238 WORDS 93586 BYTES ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||| THANK YOU FOR READING THE THINKNET NEWSLETTER |||||||| ||||||| ANY COMMENTS YOU MIGHT GIVE WOULD BE APPRECIATED |||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| All opinions expressed herein are purely those of the individual authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the Bulletin Board or Network Node on which they reside. Thinknet is not an organization but a network of people continuously communicating via electronic means. Join in. You are welcome to participate. Remember this is for fun. We won't take ourselves too seriously if you don't take us, or yourself, too seriously, either. In other words we will not participate in arguments and exchange of flames. =========================END=OF=THINKNET=FILE======================