The E-reader is Coming! The E-reader is Coming!

The e-reader race is on!

Although not the first, Kindle is definitely the most popular e-reader, and sales of e-versions of books at Amazon were greater than physical books this past holiday season. Stories have been dedicated to the popularity of e-readers, the growth of e-readers, and changes in e-readers. It seems that suddenly people are reading again. So as some cringe over the loss of physical books, it is important to remember what books do and that is to provide information, to tell stories, to make us think.

Why have we fetishized the physical book? I think this issue is akin to Linus’s blanket—it’s something we are comfortable with. After all, a lot of people are comfortable with gas guzzling SUVs, but it’s time to get over it. No one is saying, let’s abandon books. What we need to say is, here’s a new way to interact with a text, how do we do it?

e-reading: the seminar

In the Fall of 2010 at Loyola University New Orleans, we will pilot a year-long seminar on the subject of e-reading devices.

This seminar will treat the e-reading device as a shell for traditional texts, and as a text itself. In other words, we will not only read texts on e-reading devices; we will also discuss the material, intellectual, and physiological implications of the e-reading device as a 'new media' form in the English discipline.

We will explore such questions as:

How do e-reading technologies affect our understanding of literature?
How can we use literature as a way to understand the textuality of e-reading devices?
When are books more effective than e-readers? (And what can e-readers do that books cannot?)
What are the resistances to e-reading?
What are the promises of the new media technologies? (Are they fulfilled?)

This blog therefore serves to open up questions and considerations for e-reading in the English classroom. Here we will discuss different possible e-reading devices, and we will outline possible strategies for teaching on, with, and through e-reading devices.