Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

I'm teaching a three-session course at MIT starting on Tuesday as part of their January Independent Activities Period. It's sponsored by MIT's Comparative Media Studies department thanks to Henry Jenkins. It's a two-hour lecture/seminar (7-9pm, room I-390), open to anyone.

It's been 15 years since I taught in a college and I don't remember how to do it. For one thing, I think I don't need PowerPoints. Or maybe these days you do. Also, at the end I don't think we all hang around, exchange business cards, and pitch hare-brained "investment opportunites." Although, again, maybe times have changed.

The title of the series is "The Web as an Idea" and the course description runs:

In these discussions, we will try to understand the Web as more than a technologgy and more than a social phenomenon. What effect is it having on the core ideas in our culture? By analogy, if we wanted to understand democracy, we would look at what it means for foundational ideas such as liberty, authority, citizenship, equality, etc. Similarly, we will look at the Web's effect on ideas such as individuality, knowledge, space, and even, yes, reality.

But mainly the aim of the course is to have the teacher escape without having to go home and drink himself out of humiliation.