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Richard Lanham and James O'Donnell

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from: James O'Donnell

What Lind of Literacy, and How To Spread It?

Posted Tuesday, April 17, 2001, at 11:25 AM ET

Dick,

You ask, "Can a complex culture work without a sophisticated literacy? Are we about to find out?" I think we already know, and the answer is yes.

That is to say, sophisticated literacy has always been the prerogative of a subset of the whole society. Our democratic instincts don't like to admit this, and our democratic policy is to extend literacy far and wide and deep, and we've been remarkably successful at that. Isn't the question rather what kind of literacy (and I agree here there's no useful discussion in public about how "literacy" changes as media do) and how to spread it far and wide? I do think the two questions are related. If you don't know where you're going, you're not likely to get there. Do you see anybody with a hook on teaching children and adolescents to navigate an information-rich universe of the kind we're rapidly creating? I'm not sure I see colleges and universities that have really gotten any purchase on the subject.

jo'd

the breakfast table
entries
1234567891011121314
from: James O'Donnell

What Lind of Literacy, and How To Spread It?

Posted Tuesday, April 17, 2001, at 11:25 AM ET
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Richard Lanham spent his active academic career teaching and writing about medieval and Renaissance literature at UCLA, but now spends his retirement fiddling around with electronic text. He is the author of The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts. James O'Donnell is a classics professor at the University of Pennsylvania and vice provost of computing. He is the author of Avatars of the Word: From Papyrus to Cyberspace.
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