How We Think: Digital Media and Contemporary Technogenesis,

A Review

By Chase Troxell, University of Findlay

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Synopsis
Uses

Chapter Briefs

Chapters 1-3: educators, humanities scholars, graduate students, literature scholars, rhet/comp scholars and administrators.

Chapters 3-5: humanities scholars, literature scholars, history scholars, education scholors and rhet/comp scholars.

Chapters 6-8: scholars working with databases in the various liberal arts' fields.

Hayles' book is a little tricky in terms of use because, as she states, the book ultimately leaves the reader with a question, and more to the point, it is a carousel of ideas bridging a lot of different topics, bringing them into the conversation of scholarship in the digital age. However, despite these difficulties, the distinct divisions listed in my synopsis, provide a framework for potential uses.

The ecological portion of the book, as mentioned before, is a good section for educators to read, as it provides plenty of discourse on the changing humanities, especially as it relates to different kinds of readings. Educators will find the studies she discusses on hyper reading fascinating; in particular, the way she combats those who point to hyper reading as the ruination of our minds. Furthermore, the first three chapters could serve a graduate student coming to the field of the humanities well, given that it paints a specific portrait of tensions in scholarship. And extending higher up the food chain, administrators might also want to turn their attention to these sections because their awareness is almost more important in shaping their institutions and educational practices for times to come.

The technogenesis portion of the book is a little more complex and provides more of the backbone to her call for a collaborative approach to the humanities, as this is where she shows not only the necessity of change, but the awareness that change is already happening due to our hyper reading culture. This section provides strong theory conversation that scholars in the fields of education, digital humanities, history, literature and rhetoric may need to side with, side against or tweak as they work on their own projects discussing multimodality and text interpretation in the digital age. Furthermore, this section of her book accomplishes two specific tasks that these scholars may find interesting: an analysis of TOC, a digital novel, which is essentially a close reading made with digital awareness, and a comprehensive history of telegraph coding, filtered through the theory of technogenesis. Scholars with specific interests in these areas may find it necessary to examine her claims.

The database portion of her text is aimed more specifically at scholars in the digital humanities, history and literature. Embedded in this section is a discussion of two digital texts, where Hayles combines close reading techniques with digital awareness as she did with TOC; however, a key turn is her focus on databases and narratives, discussing the differences between data and narrative and the reason that narrative will not go away. In this light, this section takes on a large claim made by some in the digital age that narrative is going by the wayside. She also discusses spatial reasoning in order to validate her claims. Scholars working specifically with databases will most likely find these sections helpful, whereas other scholars may find these chapters hard to follow.

All of the above mentioned uses are only the major ways of utilizing this book. The comprehensive nature of Hayles' writing makes it incredibly hard to discern every function her book might have. Therefore, many different individuals might find her text interesting for a plethora of different reasons.

Overall, I think readers are not going to leave the book asking themselves the same question that Hayles believed she was asking. Instead, Hayles' book implores the reader to dive further into the areas it covered.

Furthermore, it is a tough book to recommend a comprehensive read. After the first three chapters, the level of interest narrows to specific content that many may find outside of the scope of their study or too hard to grasp. While the premise that she takes, to combine digital and print reading methods and apply them to digital texts is compelling, her demonstrations are less than convincing. Part of this limitation, however, is due to the fact that her book is a traditional print text. The insertion of images aids in her discussion of digital texts, but it falls short when wrapping around the full capacity of digital text.

Another aspect of her book that makes it difficult to recommend is its sheer scope. The book has three clear divisions, but within those divisions are a plethora of other topics that this review could not begin to scratch. In its entirety, Hayles' book felt like a series of papers on related topics, and the continual signposting and chapter summarizing felt like an attempt to convince the reader that all of it did belong together into one book. The only thing I can say for certain is that this book is not for the casual reader.

Works Cited

Hayles, N. Katherine. How We Think: Digital Media and Contemporary Technogenesis. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2012. Print.