Making Knowledge Public

Yesterday, in my undergraduate ISIS class ("This Is Your Brain on the Internet") the inimitable and inspiring Howard Rheingold made a virtual appearance and answered questions about social networking, virtual community, participation, media, democracy, identity, social forms, and public goods in our always-on era. I then went immediately from that class to my graduate English class ("Early American Novels and Other Fictions") where we ended up talking about social networks, imagined communities, participation, media, democracy, identity, social forms, and public goods in the late 18th century. Specifically, we were looking at Royal Tyler's The Algerine Captive and the parallels with the post-9-11 world could not be more clear.

But something else also happened in the class which made me realize that I'm teaching two versions of the same course, as different as these two may seem. One assignment in the graduate class (as in the undergrad) is for every student to do something to take their specialized knowledge and make it public. Yesterday, a number of students reported on what they are doing and I was especially thrilled to see that the "stub" on Wikipedia for Hannah Webster Foster's novel The Coquette is now a full-blown, scholarly entry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coquette. Charlotte Temple is also in the process of undergoing a makeover: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Temple. And another entry is in progress for a slave about whom more and more information is becoming available but, as yet, does not even have an entry on Wikipedia. When this one is complete, there will be links to many of the nation's rich and famous, as well as to the archive which holds her papers. Strategizing how to make links that will draw people to this entry--and to the archive--are part of creating this entry.

I mention these projects because they constitute what Rheingold discussed as the "public goods economy" of the Internet that no one who believes in neoliberal economic theory would say could happen. That is, markets are supposed to be shaped by free markets and free trade--"free" in the sense of unregulated. But what does it mean to create an open source public encyclopedia to which anyone can submit work for free and which anyone else can read for free? "Free" has costs, of course, in time and also in opportunity, as they say. But it is an interesting variation on classic ideas of supply and demand, production and consumption.

Now, in a class, the "voluntarism" of public knowledge-making is altered by that thing known as a "course requirement." But it is my hope that these students, who see their work available to anyone who wants to read it (and The Coquette and Charlotte Temple are widely taught), will get the "bug" for making their ideas public. It is part of the disease of Englishers (people in the progession of literature) to complain about "mistakes" or "oversimplifications" in Wikipedia but not to actually correct the mistake. It is as if scoffing and critique are their value-added. This is not true across the humanities. I've known many prominent philosophers who are diligent about writing for Wikipedia and editing erroneous or just one-sided entries and the Classics entries look quite good as well. So what is it with my own home profession? Why do we think grousing is tantamount to "knowledge production" or that critique equals contribution, even when critique means abrogating one's responsibility in a free, public forum of actually contributing to a public good and making the knowledge better?

How did English become such a grumpy profession? Why do so many people in this profession feel that, if they let down their guard for a minute, and appreciate rather than deride, that they have lost their intellectual edge? And what is the epistemological framework that accounts for "critique" having a higher value on the intellectual hierarchy than "formulation"? There are so many things in the world worth critiquing. No one questions that. But there is also so much to contribute, and especially now, where so many forms are open, accessible, and available to anyone who can sign-in to the public terminal at the local library. Making knowledge public is easy now. Why isn't sharing the knowledge of our profession--including its standards of credibility and citation--something we teach in every course and require of everyone entering the profession?

Enough polemic. I am exceptionally proud of the students in both my undergraduate and graduate class for what they contribute. As Howard Rheingold said at the end of his magisterial virtual visit,thinking through the great question of public good and public contribution isn't just about one course. It is a lifelong practice. Yesterday was an awfully good beginning.

- ----

Special thanks to Flickr community member Quartermane for these images.