An Unfortunate Technological Advancement?
Posted on November 18th, 2005
It is a dark day in higher education: Professor John Sutherland, of University College London, is working to develop a program which would reduce works of literature to cell phone text messages.
For instance, Hamlet's famous soliloquy is now "2B? NT2B?=???" Romeo and Juliet ends with a pithy "bothLuvrs kill Emselves."
Why would a man of education work so hard to remove all soul and passion from some of humankind's most beautiful creations? This is sure to spark many a debate among teachers and students both.
Reuters provides more details:Woe un2mnkind! The text message is trying to summarise the great poet John Milton and a respected academic thinks this may be a smart new way to teach literature. A company offering mobile phones to students has hired Professor John Sutherland, professor emeritus of English Literature at University College London, to offer subscribers text message summaries and quotes from literary classics.
The hope is that messages in the truncated shorthand of mobile phones will help make great literature more accessible.Posted by Rhys Alexander
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