Response to Alan Liu article

I have been struggling with the Alan Liu piece for a few days now, trying to get to grips with the essence of the article. It is in depth and quite wide ranging. I will attempt to pick out a number of points he makes and respond to them. I am only beginning to get my head around the various parameters of what constitutes the digital humanities. He initially talks about how this field is overlapping older more established fields like "Humanities computing an d new media studies" and quotes William Pannapacker describing digital humanities as "the next big thing". This is followed with a description of how this "new brand " is being marketed to particularly "higher education rather than is customers,the students," and with emphasis on perceptions of "cool". This notion of cool, is repeated again a few lines later when discussing the distribution of ipads and other digital devices by universities as a means of promoting knowledge as "cool". I find this interesting as it seems that in true marketing fashion the image is all important, even before the substance is defined. He outlines how the perceptions of the role of "digital delivery" shifts with economic downturn and how this becomes an "allegory of needs beyond desire", referenced in the example of the University of California and the "Virtual "eleventh campus". For me this highlights a major problem with not just this particular technology but with any major leaps in technological advancement, and that is its aims and purposes can so easily be re channelled and subverted to perform a different set of objectives. I firmly believe a university to be about much more than knowledge, or at least more about how knowledge is delivered and received and from whom. A face to face discussion  or chat over coffee is in a group is every bit as valid as a learning or sharing tool as any lecture or on line tutorial. The links between industry and education seems to be pushing towards far greater control by industry,  with Bill Gates quoted as calling traditional facilities "obsolete place-based campuses". Maybe in purely economic terms this is understandable but human interaction can not or should not ever be measured in this way. I guess my general take on all technology is that its brilliant when used to enrich and expand our potential for understanding  ourselves and the world around us but to be resisted when used to isolate or marginalise us as humans. Just as an aside, I rushed back to limerick last night after a day session on research methodology as we had tickets for the Russian ballet,Swan Lake at UL concert hall. Wouldn't be a huge follower of ballet but this doesn't come around too often. The 8, or so, year old boy sitting, or rather hopping about beside me, played a computer game on his phone throughout the entire performance, glancing up every now and then to report his score or receive some commentary on what he was missing from his mother. Maybe this particular piece of technology was enriching his life though I  have doubts, but it sure as hell wasn't enriching mine!To be continued shortly.