Twyla Gibson | University of Missouri Columbia (original) (raw)
Papers by Twyla Gibson
College & Undergraduate Libraries, 2019
How can librarians at college and undergraduate libraries contribute to digital humanities resear... more How can librarians at college and undergraduate libraries contribute to digital humanities research? This study describes The Greek Key, a working prototype Virtual Research Environment (VRE) for the analysis of texts and manuscripts. This paper explains how the VRE functions through a case study of passages in Plato and the Book of Genesis. The Greek Key VRE is a collaborative, scalable, multidisciplinary project that has the potential to engage librarians in participatory strategies such as crowdsourcing. The VRE will make it possible to pursue perennial questions in innovative ways and to use new technologies to respond to questions that do not lend themselves to more traditional methods.
, The Guardian reported on US President Donald J. Trump's first foray into the theatre of war: "U... more , The Guardian reported on US President Donald J. Trump's first foray into the theatre of war: "US officials say Trump approved counterterrorism operation without sufficient intelligence." 1 Just five days after his blustering inauguration, quietly, and over dinner, the mission was approved "by Trump and his closest advisers, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his special adviser and former Breitbart executive Stephen Bannon, as well as defence secretary General Jim Mattis." 2 One must wonder about the meaning of "sufficient intelligence," how it might be measured, and who bears responsibility when there are manifest insufficiencies all the way to the top of the "kill chain." Trump quickly pronounced the mission "successful," while the Pentagon repeated that it takes the utmost care to gather sufficient intelligence on potential "targets" by assessing their "patterns of life"-and presumably the lives of those civilians to be sacrificed as a mission's "collateral damage." 3 Reports suggest as many as 24 civilian deaths. 4 "Success" and "intelligence" amount, in some reckonings, to necroeconomies: what officials deem a tolerable threshold of civilian deaths, the acceptable ratio of enemy combatants to non-combatant civilians. And while President Trump justified the loss of life-including the lives of an American commando, an 8-year-old American citizen, and a newborn baby-on the basis of some "important intelligence that
The writings of Marshall McLuhan have had an enduring influence on our understanding of the socia... more The writings of Marshall McLuhan have had an enduring influence on our understanding of the social and cultural impacts of communication media. The idiomatic resonance of McLuhan’s famous statement, “the medium is the message,” has entered language and contemporary consciousness, influencing the way we think and feel about media, the way we perceive their effects, and our awareness of their potential repercussions.
Orality and Literacy, 2011
Mediatropes, 2008
In a culture like ours … it is sometimes a bit of a shock to be reminded that, in operational and... more In a culture like ours … it is sometimes a bit of a shock to be reminded that, in operational and practical fact, the medium is the message. (1964/1994, p. 7) With this remark, McLuhan introduced into the language our current usage of the term media as well as the idiom, the medium is the message (Lapham, 1994, p. x). This study, a companion to my "Introduction" to this volume, considers McLuhan's contributions to media as an interdisciplinary approach to communication, culture, and technology. It also considers McLuhan's contributions in light of the arguments presented in the various essays in this issue of MediaTropes, each of which is concerned with the meaning and significance of the adage, "the medium is the message." It has now been several decades since McLuhan published his major works and inevitably, his writings are a product of their place and time. Even so, his insights continue to resonate. In an era when academic research seldom remains relevant for more than a few years, and changes wrought by technological innovation are radically reconfiguring social and cultural practices-and nowhere more so than in the study of media itself-much of McLuhan's scholarship has stood the test of time. Why is McLuhan essential reading for anyone attempting to understand media and their effects? Of McLuhan's many unique and significant achievements, I focus on three contributions to knowledge that I maintain have been central to his wide readership, enduring reputation, and continuing relevance. I propose that McLuhan remains indispensable reading because his writings encapsulate fundamental concerns that distinguish media as a framework for research across www.mediatropes.com
Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology
Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 2015
Media Transatlantic: Developments in Media and Communication Studies between North American and German-speaking Europe, 2016
Mcluhan Galaxy Conference Understanding Media Today Barcelona May 23rd 25th Conference Proceedings 2010 Isbn 9788493880217 Pags 31 44, 2010
International Journal of McLuhan Studies 1 , 2011
In the media theory of Marshall McLuhan, there is a tension and inconsistency between the argumen... more In the media theory of Marshall McLuhan, there is a tension and inconsistency between the arguments concerning the 'Great Divide' between oral and written forms as represented by Homer and Plato, and the conception of a 'frontier' of 'merging' and 'interplay' between the two media systems⎯with Plato marking the point of this convergence. Two fundamental premises of the arguments concerning media are at odds: the premise that orality and literacy are contrasting forms; and the argument that the new medium takes as its content the previous media. I show that Plato's dialogues manifest the same formulaic patterns that characterize Homer's oral-derived formulaic style. I argue that evidence of formulaic composition in the dialogues indicates that Plato represents not a 'break' with tradition but a 'break boundary'-a site of mixture and interaction-between two media systems and cultures. I propose that Plato's dialogues are a hybrid medium, combining formulaic poetics with an accomplished literate prose style. Findings confirm McLuhan's arguments concerning the 'doubleness' of Plato's writings, and reinforce the crucial observation that 'one medium's content is always other media', even as they indicate that the transition from oral tradition into written texts was subtler than initially envisioned. I end by commenting on the significance of these findings for tribal cultures in today's Global Village.
Rethinking Orality and Literacy: Reflections Across Disciplines and Cultures, 2010
The McNeese Review 48., 2010
What’s Next? Il Lavoro Dell ‘Insegnante E Le Sue Scelte Nell ‘Etὰ Dell ‘Elettronica [The Future of the University in the Electronic Age], 2009
Critical Issues in the Ethics of Health Care: Challenging the Principle of Autonomy in Bioethics, 2009
College & Undergraduate Libraries, 2019
How can librarians at college and undergraduate libraries contribute to digital humanities resear... more How can librarians at college and undergraduate libraries contribute to digital humanities research? This study describes The Greek Key, a working prototype Virtual Research Environment (VRE) for the analysis of texts and manuscripts. This paper explains how the VRE functions through a case study of passages in Plato and the Book of Genesis. The Greek Key VRE is a collaborative, scalable, multidisciplinary project that has the potential to engage librarians in participatory strategies such as crowdsourcing. The VRE will make it possible to pursue perennial questions in innovative ways and to use new technologies to respond to questions that do not lend themselves to more traditional methods.
, The Guardian reported on US President Donald J. Trump's first foray into the theatre of war: "U... more , The Guardian reported on US President Donald J. Trump's first foray into the theatre of war: "US officials say Trump approved counterterrorism operation without sufficient intelligence." 1 Just five days after his blustering inauguration, quietly, and over dinner, the mission was approved "by Trump and his closest advisers, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his special adviser and former Breitbart executive Stephen Bannon, as well as defence secretary General Jim Mattis." 2 One must wonder about the meaning of "sufficient intelligence," how it might be measured, and who bears responsibility when there are manifest insufficiencies all the way to the top of the "kill chain." Trump quickly pronounced the mission "successful," while the Pentagon repeated that it takes the utmost care to gather sufficient intelligence on potential "targets" by assessing their "patterns of life"-and presumably the lives of those civilians to be sacrificed as a mission's "collateral damage." 3 Reports suggest as many as 24 civilian deaths. 4 "Success" and "intelligence" amount, in some reckonings, to necroeconomies: what officials deem a tolerable threshold of civilian deaths, the acceptable ratio of enemy combatants to non-combatant civilians. And while President Trump justified the loss of life-including the lives of an American commando, an 8-year-old American citizen, and a newborn baby-on the basis of some "important intelligence that
The writings of Marshall McLuhan have had an enduring influence on our understanding of the socia... more The writings of Marshall McLuhan have had an enduring influence on our understanding of the social and cultural impacts of communication media. The idiomatic resonance of McLuhan’s famous statement, “the medium is the message,” has entered language and contemporary consciousness, influencing the way we think and feel about media, the way we perceive their effects, and our awareness of their potential repercussions.
Orality and Literacy, 2011
Mediatropes, 2008
In a culture like ours … it is sometimes a bit of a shock to be reminded that, in operational and... more In a culture like ours … it is sometimes a bit of a shock to be reminded that, in operational and practical fact, the medium is the message. (1964/1994, p. 7) With this remark, McLuhan introduced into the language our current usage of the term media as well as the idiom, the medium is the message (Lapham, 1994, p. x). This study, a companion to my "Introduction" to this volume, considers McLuhan's contributions to media as an interdisciplinary approach to communication, culture, and technology. It also considers McLuhan's contributions in light of the arguments presented in the various essays in this issue of MediaTropes, each of which is concerned with the meaning and significance of the adage, "the medium is the message." It has now been several decades since McLuhan published his major works and inevitably, his writings are a product of their place and time. Even so, his insights continue to resonate. In an era when academic research seldom remains relevant for more than a few years, and changes wrought by technological innovation are radically reconfiguring social and cultural practices-and nowhere more so than in the study of media itself-much of McLuhan's scholarship has stood the test of time. Why is McLuhan essential reading for anyone attempting to understand media and their effects? Of McLuhan's many unique and significant achievements, I focus on three contributions to knowledge that I maintain have been central to his wide readership, enduring reputation, and continuing relevance. I propose that McLuhan remains indispensable reading because his writings encapsulate fundamental concerns that distinguish media as a framework for research across www.mediatropes.com
Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology
Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 2015
Media Transatlantic: Developments in Media and Communication Studies between North American and German-speaking Europe, 2016
Mcluhan Galaxy Conference Understanding Media Today Barcelona May 23rd 25th Conference Proceedings 2010 Isbn 9788493880217 Pags 31 44, 2010
International Journal of McLuhan Studies 1 , 2011
In the media theory of Marshall McLuhan, there is a tension and inconsistency between the argumen... more In the media theory of Marshall McLuhan, there is a tension and inconsistency between the arguments concerning the 'Great Divide' between oral and written forms as represented by Homer and Plato, and the conception of a 'frontier' of 'merging' and 'interplay' between the two media systems⎯with Plato marking the point of this convergence. Two fundamental premises of the arguments concerning media are at odds: the premise that orality and literacy are contrasting forms; and the argument that the new medium takes as its content the previous media. I show that Plato's dialogues manifest the same formulaic patterns that characterize Homer's oral-derived formulaic style. I argue that evidence of formulaic composition in the dialogues indicates that Plato represents not a 'break' with tradition but a 'break boundary'-a site of mixture and interaction-between two media systems and cultures. I propose that Plato's dialogues are a hybrid medium, combining formulaic poetics with an accomplished literate prose style. Findings confirm McLuhan's arguments concerning the 'doubleness' of Plato's writings, and reinforce the crucial observation that 'one medium's content is always other media', even as they indicate that the transition from oral tradition into written texts was subtler than initially envisioned. I end by commenting on the significance of these findings for tribal cultures in today's Global Village.
Rethinking Orality and Literacy: Reflections Across Disciplines and Cultures, 2010
The McNeese Review 48., 2010
What’s Next? Il Lavoro Dell ‘Insegnante E Le Sue Scelte Nell ‘Etὰ Dell ‘Elettronica [The Future of the University in the Electronic Age], 2009
Critical Issues in the Ethics of Health Care: Challenging the Principle of Autonomy in Bioethics, 2009