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Kelly, Kevin. Outof'Control:TheNewBiologyof'Machines,SocialSystemsandthe Economic World. Reading, MA: Perseus, 1994_

Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge.Trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi-Minneapolis: U of Minne­apolis P, 1984.

Marcus, Greil. Lipstick Traces:A Secret History of the Twentieth Century.Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1989.

Readings,Bill. The University in Ruins. Cambridge, MA: Harvard ·UP,1996.

Smith, Paul. Discerning the Subject. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1988.

Trimbur, John. "Agency and the Death of the Author: A Partial Defense ofModernism." JAC 20 (2000): 283-98.

Wolfe, Cary. CriticalEnvironments:PostmodernTheory and thePragmaticsofthe "Outside.' Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1998.

Winterowd, W. Ross. "Where the Action Is: Doing Versus Being in theAcademy." JAC20 (2000): 299-309.

Quodlibeta on Agency and Other Virtual Matters:A Response to John Trimbur

Cynthia Haynes

Readingis hard. It is madeharderwhen our interpretivegrids functionasgatekeepers against new ideas or ideas that run counter to our currentunderstanding. But I think it is hardest when we encounter "counter­jectionist" thinking.A counterjectionistposes somethingold in the guiseof somethingnew. If the counterjectionistis successful,he or she tripsupreadersby tricking them into thinkingthey, too, feel the resonanceof theold in the new.Admittedly,it isnext to impossibletoposit thenew innewterms(or to see thenewwithneweyes).I wouldcall this eventsomethinglike "projectionist" thinking. It also falls into the categoryof the virtual,

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which is closer to what I mean, eventhoughthe virtual is too oftenpittedonly against the actual. I try to read,write, and think in this way in orderto "future proof' myself (inasmuchas this is possible), both for my ownedificationandforthesakeofmy students.Iwanttobereadyforthe futurewhen we stumble into it together.I want to smell it up close, and notjustrememberthepastunder somehip/gnosis.I supposethis accounts formyreaction to John Trimbur's "Agency and the Death of the Author: APartial DefenseofModemism"-specifically, his desire "to suspend foramomentthemillennialsenseofurgency that seemsto drivepostmodemtheorizing" (285).Aside fromthe factthat this stateof suspensionwoulddetain us on our way to the future, it also feels like a derailmentwaitingto happen.

Trimburisnot, inmyview,blatantlycounterjectionistinhis thinking,but Iworrythathisessaywillbewelcomedby suchcriticsinorderto shoreup their own "retrosubjectivist" projects. And that prospect is the keydifficulty I have with his modest proposal to rehabilitate the concept ofagency (via Marx) and the concept of the modernist subject (via theEnlightenment).Theproblemisoneofattitude,of theangleof thepitch­forward (future, virtual) or backward (retro, actual). To be sure, thecoastline is impossible to measure in the wake of postmodem theory.Although there may be value in redrawingthe shorelineas it might havelookedbefore, even that imagewillvary, of course,dependingon who isdrawing the line. Casting my brief response in these terms, I trust thatsetting my sights on the virtual-while keeping Trimbur's view also inmind-is enough to delineate a possible common horizon. Where wediffer will be made clear as I revisit somekey conceptual startingpointsfor Trimbur's argument: the death of the author, postmodem theory,subjectivity,agency,doing, freedom,the streets, and the present. Wherewe agreerests in the languageofhis call to upgrade what is outmoded, toreconstitute the obsolete and retrograde,and to mobilize allegiancesagainst"an archiveof datedbeliefs"thatmerelyleavesus "with the shardof an old lexicon instead of a motive for action" (289-90).

Thereis adifference,however,betweentryingto reconstitutesubjec­tivityby replacingoutdatedtheorieswithupdated"structuresoffeeling,"and using familiar landmarks(topoi,metaphors) in order to go offshorealtogether. In the latter case, we can traffic in what I will call "betarhetoric": a testbed platform from which we can invent and movetheoreticalcontraband(suchasnewregistersofagencyandauthor-effectsmadepossibleby virtualnetworks)outsidethejurisdiction ofmainstreamrhetoric and compositionandcontinentalphilosophy.1Going"beta" also

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allows me to structure this response by way of "tiny deconstructions'?that are, in one sense, direct responses to Trimbur and, in another sense,perform as thirteenth-century quodltheta-that is, as a type of scholarlyexercise comprised of disputations that conjoin a mixture of texts ofvarious provenances (or, in music, a whimsical succession of piecesspontaneously strung together).' More importantly, the appeal ofquodlibeta is that the disputation could center on "any problem whatso­ever (de quolthet) proposed by any listener whatsoever (a quolihet)"(Alluntis and Wolter xxv). And now to the q's.

Cueing the Queue of Q'sIn Trimbur's "partial defense of modem ism," which he admits is "partialin the sense of limited, unfinished, and partisan," I am slightly troubledby his reduction of postmodemist theory to mere reactionary thinkingagainst modernism, and by his claim that some critics use it in order to"blackmail" us with a "fear of the Universal Subject," which, he suggests,is at best apolitical and at worst put "to questionable political ends" (286,294). Mind you, I am not discounting some vestige of currency inTrimbur's arguments; some are powerfully expedient trajectories to thefuture-for example, when he discusses Foucault's "mode of reflectiverelation to the present," and Robert Damton' s interpretation of "hackwriters ... produc[ing] a constant stream of libelles" against France's OldRegime, which are ideas I will return to. I think Trimbur may havehitched a ride on the wrong side of the road leading to where he wantsto go. Or, as a student once said to me, "You've got the right string, butthe wrong yo-yo."

Not wanting to dwell too long on Trimbur's minor mishandling ofpostmodemtheory, let me just say why reducing postmodem theory andthen dismissing it so briefly severely limits the depth and complexity ofthe various theories we might generally construe as strategies ofdeconstruction. Although Trimbur's analysisdoesnotdiscountvariationson postmodemist views of subjectivity, it does have the effect of nottaking into account some of the positive alternatives developed under therubrics of poststructuralism and postmodemism. As Trimbur notes, whatmade the author "obsolete" came about after the "failed revolution in1968" (the student riots in Paris), during which time the "changingrelations ofwriting and reading" posited byDerrida and Lyotard(amongother "revisionist currents on the Left Bank") left the author "fragmentedand decentered" (283). Derrida announced that "[t]he 'subject' ofwritingdoes not exist if we mean by that some sovereign solitude of the author.

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The subjectof writing is a system of relationsbetween strata: the MysticPad, the psyche, society, the world" ("Freud" 226-27). Subjectivity is"inscribed in a system of differance" (Positions 28).

Eschewingthe"subject"of suchacirculatorysystem,Trimbur wantsto "keep at leastaversionofthe authoraliveandkicking" asa"vital pointto organizearound, in writers' guilds, unions, congresses,cooperatives,andotherassociationsfor self-management"(295-96). Buthis definitionsof and warnings about postmodern deconstructions of the author andagency tend to characterize the subject in such a way that it leaves nodurable space forunderstandingwhy notionsof the author as an agentofa theoreticalcentral selfwere originallydebunked.Trimburunderstandsthe stakes and how they got so high, and partially agrees with BruceMcComiskey,for example,who arguesthat the "Enlightenmentconcep­tion of the Subject ... leads inevitably to [physical and metaphysical]violence" (352).What troublesTrimbur is how such conclusionsend uprewritinghistory.Thus,he turns to Foucault's qualifier that "one doesn'thave to be 'for' or 'against' the Enlightenment"in order to recoup what"webelievetobe indispensableintheEnlightenmentforthe 'constitutionof ourselves as autonomous subjects'" (Trimbur 291). It is not clear,however,whetherTrimburpatchesus allthewaythroughto theFoucault­Kant front, since he filters out any noise on the line about the "new"subject, as when Foucaultposits: "To be modem is not to accept oneselfas one is in the flux of the passingmoments;it is to take oneself as objectofacomplexanddifficultelaboration:whatBaudelaire,inthevocabularyof his day, calls dandysme"(41). In so doing, Trimbur unconsciouslymisleads by misrepresenting both the motives and matter of somepostmodem analyses in his attempt to counter what he views aspostmodemism's originary misleading. Predicated on such terms asdecentering, fragmentation, impasse, and vacancy, postmodem theorycomesacrossas destructiveandnihilistic,characterizationsthat have notgone unaddressed by those accustomed to explaining deconstruction.Accordingto JohnCaputo,deconstructionis "not somestealthy,cunningagent of disruption, is not an agent at all"; rather, it "simply (passes]theword along that one is rather more on one's own that one likes to think"(4). Caputo explains:

Deconstruction shows how a film of undecidability creeps quietly overthe clarity of decisions, on cat-soft paws, clouding judgment just ever somuch, so that we cannot quite make out the figures all around us. But donot be mistaken. Deconstructionoffersnoexcusenottoact.Deconstruction

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does not put up a stop signthat brings actionto a halt, to the full stop ofindecision;rather, it installsa flashingyellowlight,warningdriverswhomustinanycasegetwheretheyaregoingtoproceedwithcaution,for theway is not safe. Undecidabilitydoes not detract from the urgency ofdecision; it simplyunderlinesthe difficulty. (4; emphasisadded)

In a similarvein, Drucilla Cornell renamesdeconstruction"the philoso­phy of the limit" precisely because it "does not reduce the philosophicaltradition to an 'unreconstructable' litter,thusundermining the possibilityof determining precepts for moral action; rather, it exposes the quasi­transcendental conditions that establish any system, including a legalsystem as a system" (1).

Trimbur argues, however, that "agency" is not about explaining,especiallyexplaining"why peopleactas theydo"; rather, it's "a questionof what is to be done" (287). That Trimbur makes this claim under whathe believes is the full steam of his sovereignsubjectivity reinforces hisaimtoput to rest the "rumor"thattheauthorhasdied.AvitalRonellmakesa fascinating point on this topic in an interview with DianeDavis.Ronellsuggeststhat the authorwasnever"not deadand that it hasnever stoppeddying." Furthermore, she explains,

Psychoanalysishas been declareddead, too, and so has deconstruction,but, as we know, the dead can be very powerful. Freud illustrates orthrows this power switch in Totemand Taboo:when the little resentfulhordes of brothers get together and kill this powerful father, what theydiscover is that they are left with remorse and unmanageablehauntingandsadness,suchthat thedeadfatherturnsoutto be morepowerfuldeadthanhe everwasalive.He ismorealivewhenhe isdead.Thus,to declarewriting dead can also, in fact,makeit morehaunting,moredifficultandcommanding.(Davis254)

Trimbur, in contrast,believes the problems associatedwith resusci­tatingagency(as the"missinglink" inpostmodemaccountsof subjectiv­ity) are the direct result ofpostmodemisrn having"dissolved" the author"into the semiosisof intertextuality"(283).He wouldhave us retract thedissolutionor death of the author, revive "the ethos of the High Enlight­enment" (which, as Foucault suggests, enabled us to "[throw] off theyoke" of "self-caused immaturity") and the French Revolution, afterwhich we can all go about continuing"'the undefined work of freedom,'which is the modernist legacy" (294)..

Yet, calculating a link between writing and revolution equates lan­guage with meaning in a way that is not unproblematic.In "Reading the

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World," Gayatri Spivak suggests that the question of freedom is at theheart of the dispute about reading that exists between rhetoric andcomposition theorists and literary critics. Spivak claims that the "fear ofa critical reading that would question the writer's direct access to his orher meaning is related to the received dogma of the illusion of freedom"(30). Trimburarguesthatsuchclaimschallengethe"felt senseofpresenceand agency that individuals and groups experience at those moments ofhistorical crisis when they know what they are doing and join together,with their differences, at the center of their own history, without debili­tating irony or doubt" (295). That's cutting to the chase. Solidarity,however, cuts two ways-e-forexample, we must remember Jonestown,Columbine,Oklahoma City, Waco, Berlin. Preferring the "the old mod­ernistprojectofnegotiatingdifferencesout inthe streets,"Trimburrejectswhathe terms"theprojectofpreservingdifferenceasanalwaysuncertaintheoretical foundation" (295). Still, an interpellation that draws us to­gether under the banner of "the streets" is also not unproblematic.

Cueing the Virtual Q'sThus far I've had to beabit circumspectaboutTrimbur's retrospectiveonthe modernist subject, focusing on what I consider the most neglectedaspect of his argument-that he grounds his call to action in a nostalgiafor modernism and the subject of Enlightenmentrationality by pointingto the impotence of postmodem theory and its story of the death of theauthor ("for all its charms"). Turning now to points of agreement-toways ofupgrading what is outmoded,andreconstitutingwhat is obsoleteandretrograde-I slipintoavirtual"contactzone"notofmyownmaking,but one that is "in the making."As I suggestedearlier, I'm not necessarilyjuxtaposing the virtual with the actual so much as adjusting the attitude,or thepitch, of terms like agent, thestreets, andthepresent. I envision thearray of SETI dishes pointed to the sky in the film Contact,moving inorder to capture a signal long enough to translate its message. Here iswhere I cue the future and spin some projectionist (and virtual) tales inwhich newregisters of agencyand authorshipnot only resist codificationin the languageof modemism,they alsopresage its radical metamorpho­sis.InSilicon Second Nature, StefanHelmreichwrites:"AsArtificialLiferesearchersembracethe logicsof syntheticvitality, they come to possessanewsortof subjectivity,asiliconsecondnaturethatmaybe increasinglycommon among humans inhabiting a world in which computers arehaunted by 'life'" (12). These are wild haunts, admittedly. But I'mdiscovering that it's wild all the waydown.

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Recently,a few ofus on the Computers,Writing,andTheory listservhadoccasiontodiscusssuch invocationsof "the streets"madein the nameof doing the so-calledrealwork of teaching,asopposedto what someseeas mere theorizing (see Olson's discussion of the backlash againsttheory),"When it was suggestedthat somehowwe need to "take theorytothe streets," it seemed to me worth noting that the concept of the streetsis changing in substantive ways. I wrote:

Taking theory to the street, or "doing street theory" may be apreferable way to cloak (cloak as outerwear or as concealing) one's"theorizing" or "readingtheory" in the domainofaction (activity).I'mreally interested in why the "street" legitimizes theorizing in the waysome seem to want it to. Takenfurther, I wonderwhether this list couldbe considered a "street"? Are we neighbors in that way? Is it notsusceptible to the same drive-by shootings, block parties, strolling,protests, onlooking, rubbernecking,gossiping,preaching, bike-riding,roller-skating,yo-yoing, hopscotching,ropeskipping,barbequing,ham-mering, street-dancing? What counts as tithestreet"? Whatcounts as"doing theory"? (12 July 1999)

I'd like to think every street is like the Berlin Wall, imagined andmaterialized(real-ized)in theform ofmondo theoreticalhairsplittingatthe highest level-yet taken down slab by slab, coveredwith swarms ofjubilantpeople danglinglegsoverbittersweetgraffiti-Taggers,asgraffitiartists call themselves,liken their work to "hangingyour alias on theirscene. "And evenasI lookouttonightonaplacidglacialfJord inNorway,light still at two a.m., snow in the elevations, the sounds of the sheep'sjangling bellswhenI startle themwhile takinga walkoutsideto hear theragingwaterfallbutfifty yardsfrom mywindow-even asI witnessall thisserenity, these same streets were occupied by Germanforces that werehunting down resistancefighters in WorldWarIL one of whom lived inthishouse,and whodied in a campnotfarfrom hereafter being taken inthe night, near this waterfall, with the sound of bellsjangling as theabductiontookplace. Hangingouraliasonanysceneisnot,for me,aboutfinding the Uwayout." It's about livingwith theduality, thedangers,thearcticiceinall itsbeautyshiftingintothunderingavalanches,orknowingthat it can and will. Maybe on this street, maybe tonight.

How wefigure street theory makesan immensedifference,but whatsort of subjects are we if ourfigurations are haunted by tropes such asbandwidthandspeed? Whattimezonesareourstreets in? Whataliasarewe hanging on whose scene if wejockey between images of restorationand devastation?Is thisnot thenatureof thesublime?Thatcombination

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of ruins amid beauty? Theory amid practice? (16 July 1999).The infobahn (the informationhighway), however, does more than

just teach an old metaphornew tricks; it shifts the locusof the streets andexponentiallymultipliesthem at the sametime. It also cuts through whatmakes the streets such an enticing toposby problematizingthe relationsamongtemporality,spatiality,activity,and agency.New tropes emerge,such as proximity and speed.New pockets of autonomyfade in and out.New criticalavenuesreplacethe old: the rhetoricof the glitch, resolutionfatigue(whatfiltersoutthegraininessofreality?), codedimmersion,real­time mobility markets (moving in all directions at once). To encounterthese other texturesof thinking,it isnecessaryto cross the borders of ourdiscursive comfort zones and seek temporary asylum among other dis­courses. For example, accustomed (and cautious) as we are about thehistory of "error," making it somethingworth studyingrequires the kindof casuistic stretchingthat some digital artists find palpable material forconstructingart.BelindaBarnetandNik Gaffneymakeuse ofthe factthat"the nature of technology is that it breaks down. Computers run out ofmemory, the web is full of dead links, programs crash, information isgarbled.... Why is the glitch dangerouslypolitical, anarchic, then? Itdraws attentionto the constructednatureof information.To its fragility,usually hidden from us. To its nature as bits, not atoms. The glitchinterfereswith perfect reproduction."Carriedinto the domainof subjec­tivity,the glitchalsosuggestsahitchin spreadingtherumorof autonomy,which is not to say autonomydoesnot surfacefrom time to time. HakimBey calls this the "temporaryautonomouszone" (T.A.Z.).According toBey, "by extrapolatingfrompast and future stories about 'islands in thenet' we may collect evidence to suggest that a certain kind of 'freeenclave' is not only possible in our time but also existent."

Like Trimbur, I am also enamoredof Kant's call for the "maturity"with which to "overthrow custodial care and take things into your ownhands" (294).It seemstherehasneverbeenamorefecundperiod inwhichto achievejust that, but not necessarilyon modernistgrounds.This is notto say that digitalculture is utopian,nor that teletechnologiesare ubiqui­tous or unproblematic.As Ronell notes, "I have never thought positivetechnologies initiate new modalities of Being or reflection. Very oftenthese technologies,I have tried to show,respond to some sort of rupturethat itself isn't even entirelynew-there isn't the epistemic,clean-cutorclearnewbeginning" (Davis256-57).Havingsaidthat, I alsowant to saythat the issue of accessis asproblematicnow as it was when books werefirst bound andprinted and the illiteratewere excludedfrom knowledge

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as much by the economics ofbuying books as by their access to educationand learning to read. The degree of belief and participation in socialresponsibility, however, seems to be escalating, made easier by net­worked collectives for whom previously limited proximity to one anotherprevented qualitative collaboration on common goals.' In short, it is nolonger as easy to criticize the rush to technologize on the grounds that itfurther marginalizes the already disenfranchised. Even WIREDmaga­zine-the erstwhile bible of the new "optionaires" (millionaires onpaper)-recently compared the number of people in Africa with access tosafe drinking water and sanitation facilities to the number of Africans whoown PC's and the number of local Internet providers per country (Behar137-38). And as early as 1994, WIRED reported on the question ofpriorities in Africa. Jeff Greenwald interviewed Babacar Fall-aSenegalese journalist and communications specialist appointed byUNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and CulturalOrganization-on the effort to revive the Pan African News Agency(PANA). According to Greenwald,

It's well known that aid projects on the continent have a history ofexpensive failure;the reason, Falladvanced,is the dismal state of Africancommunications.

"You can't treat people like cattle," hestated imperatively. "Youhaveto convincethem-which meansyou have to communicatewith them.For twentyyears, thepriorities for development in Africa have includedagriculture, health, and the environment.Yes. But none of these cansucceed if there's no communication.You can't develop agriculture ifyou can't have a dialogue with the farmers in rural areas. You can'timprove health if people aren't informed about major epidemics likeAIDS. You can't protect the environment if you can't communicate withthe people who are placing it in danger. The industrial countries havespent billions of dollars trying to develop agriculture, change healthconditions, and fight problemslike pollution and desertification. Nearlyall these programs have failed. Finally, we understand why: There is noway to develop a country if the people cannot participate."

Additionally, WIREDreports that the exiled government of Tibet isa new client of a radical organization called HavenCo, which has estab­lished the first data haven that answers to no government. Located onSealand, a sixty-year-old gunnery fort (offshore platform) in the NorthSea, HavenCo's founder Ryan Lackey (a twenty-one-year-old MITdropout) established his offshore, off-government company on a "princi­pality" occupied by a British couple who took over the fortress through

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a loophole in international law called "dereliction of sovereignty"(Garfinkel236). Theyproclaimedthe independenceof Sealand and evenissued passports and minted gold and silver coins. The point of thepartnership between Sealand and Havenflo is to give entities like TibetOnline an Internet presence and to "test some of the edges of our 'geopolitical economy" (234). Lackeybelieves that ''freedom is the nextkiller app" (230; emphasis added). For those less geeky, that meansfreedom is the next big software applicationto come along.

In computingcircles,suchexamplesof the "hacker ethic" provides acorrective to industry standards and planned obsolescence by what iscalled the "open source" movement. It's no secret that technologyinnovationstrugglesagainstproprietarymodelsof researchanddevelop­ment. I compare it to a similarmodel in compositionpedagogy: innova­tive theory is drivenout by theproprietarytextbookpublishing industry.In other words, the question of authorship and agency gets played outalongthe samelinesas it doesinprogrammingandelectronicexpression.But instead of recommending the author as "a vital point to organizearound," as Trimbur suggests,writers should follow the lead of writersonline (including programmers) who tend to foster trust among them­selves in an "open source" cross-platform environment. Additionally,presented with other registers of agency as we write (for example, theability to encrypt texts) and as we read (that is, when we read textsscreenedforusby ourownsoftwareagentstrollingthe Internetaccordingto our reading habits), we have to theorize the passage of texts amongagents(whocouldbe actualorvirtual)asmuchasor more than we do theconstruction and interpretationof texts among authors, which has beenthe primary business of rhetoric and compositionuntil now."

Hypertextandcybertexts-what EspenAarsethcalls"ergodic litera­ture"-are just two examples of new forms of writing and reading thatvirtualspacesliketheWWWandMOOs(andprogramslikeDreamweaverandStoryspace)makepossible.Aarseth's researchshould beparticularlyinteresting to rhetorical theorists because of his explicit use of literarytheory. Aarseth explains,

During the cybertextual process, the user will have effectuated a semioticsequence, and this selective movement is a work of physical constructionthat the various concepts of 'reading' do not account for. This phenom­enon I call ergodic, using a term appropriated from physics that derivesfrom the Greek words ergon and hodos, meaning 'work' and 'path.' Inergodic literature, nontrivial effort is required to allow the reader totraverse the text.

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In one sense, older rhetorical forms seem to be reemerging. And whileformat is no longer exterior to (or unrelated to) thinking, it isn't asdeterministic in the ways that essays have been over the years.

I guess if anything I've learned to be "format agnostic," which is alsoto say, in the context of this essay, "subjectivity agnostic." I would nothave us use one "operating system" instead of another, subscribe to one"provider" instead of another, or advocate one "interface" instead ofanother. Yet, I would not have us build more foundations on modernistsoil. I would have us go offshore, Of, as Rem Koolhaas and LebbeusWoods do, I would "explore the unmaterial world" (qtd. in Wolf 314­15). Koolhaas and Woods, in different ways, fashion radical architecturalconcepts that have a bearing on agency and on what counts as "the street."As Gary Wolf explains, Koolhaas perceived that "architectural conceptshave marketable value even if concrete is never poured. Perhaps espe­cially if concrete is never poured" (314-15). This could also apply totheorizing the subject. Koolhaas sees his job, Wolf writes, as analyzing"the relationship between human behavior, built structures, and theinvisible networks of commerce and culture" (315). Woods, in fact, isfamous for having never built any of his designs. He has, however,designed a freespace for the city of Zagreb after it was destroyed, and hetheorizes about the relation between the architecture of decay (and theunbuilt) and the urban subject.

My agnosticism also extends to defining agency under any specificregime as having been more effective than any other in dismantlingoppressive power structures. The "ethosof the High Enlightenment" is abit tarnished-to put it mildly. Thus, invoking, as Trimbur does, thehackwriters of the Old Regime who produced "a constant stream of " . "slanderous, pornographic, and sensationalistic attacks on every aspect ofrespectable society" seems less useful than invoking hackers on the Web,which is rife with such libelles written by all manner of "authors" gameenough to negotiate their differences out in the virtual streets (293).Agency is alive and kicking. Consider the resurrection of Morse Code,which is now being harnessed for rehabilitation therapy through the useof Augmentative-Alternative Communication and Assistive Technology,including mobility and adapted worksite access for para- and quadriple­gics. Other inroads include high-end experimental virtual reality systemsthat can give quadriplegics immersive experiences such as the experienceof walking again. And refinements in voice recognition software areincreasing the access to knowledge for the blind and disabled.

It is encouraging that Trimbur heeds Foucault's call for a "mode of

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reflective relation to the present," but let us also look to alternativetestbedsof reality (orbeta rhetoricsof real-time,suchas MOOs)as otherinstantiationsof the "present"worth exploring.' Ifwe add to Trimbur'sBrechtian theater-like "dramatic laboratory" the new laboratory of thetechnological and virtual (or the unmaterial) world, we will see that"spectators[have]becomecollaborators"inwayspreviouslyunavailableto themin the offlineworld.Thus, it is difficultto shareTrimbur's sensethat we are "without recourse to collectiveself-definingaction," givenjust the few examplesI couldpresent in the spaceof this response(297).We may be "cast" into the world without recourse to anti-revisionistaccounts of modernist values, but do we need them in this rapidlychangingvirtual world?

Universityof TexasDallas, Texas

Notes

1. I deal more substantiallywith these issues in my current project, BetaRhetoric:A VirtualAnatomy of Technology,Writing,and Deconstruction.

2. The use of "tiny" is drawn from the practice of "tinysex" in online chatspaces like MUDs (multi-user domains) and IRe (Internet Relay Chat), andfrom a generalsenseof "being" online(seeDibbell).SeealsoBenedikt's onlinedescription of various MUD protocols. She writes, "When the prefix 'Tiny' isput in front of a word, it puts the word in the context of happening on a MU*(after the first MU·, TinyMUD).For example:TinyJerk, TinyPlot, TinySex."

3. Quodlibeta(from the Latin quodlibetmeaning "what you want," or "asyou would like it") also concerned "free discussions" not restrained to aparticular subjectandwrittenaftera scholar(teacher)had awidespreadrenown.These "miscellanies" took the form of "answers to questions which ... beganto come to him, not only from the academicworld in which he lived, but fromall classes of persons and from everypart of Christendom" (Catholic Encyclo­pedia). Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, andWilliam ofOckham (amongothers) published on quodlibetalquestions.

4. Computers, Writing, and Theory (http://lingua.utdallas.edulrhetoric/cwt.html)is an e-maildiscussiongroupcommittedto discussionon a number oftopics related to computersand writing (broadlydefined), rhetoric and compo­sition and technology, and the theory and pedagogy related to electronicexpression in these fields.

5. For some discussionon this outsideof the United States, see HolmevikandHaynes, "NorwegianAccords."It shouldbe notedthat much ofthe researchaboutonlinecollaborationis featuredin the fieldofcomputersandwriting in the

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U.S., but there are vast collectives involved in reshaping and redefiningcollaboration that should not go unnoticed, and GlobalLiteracies, where ourarticle appears, is unique in its approach to this topic.

6. It would be useful here to point to other models of agency and subjectiv­ity-for example, Elam's notion of "groundless solidarity" and Braidotti'snotion of "nomadic subjects." For a brief and general explanation of theconcepts of self or subject in composition, see Haynes' "Self/the Subject."

7. ViriIio's critiques of the fetishization of thepresent (his fear that real­time teletechnologies will "kill the present") have been hotly debated amongdigital theorists for severalyears. Formy viewsonVirilio, see"Total ReCALL"and Holmevik and Haynes, "Cypher'Text."See also Virilio's OpenSky and therecent collection ofVirilian criticismedited byArmitage. Thisissuecould alsobe situated perhaps against the backdrop of Latour's argument that it isproblematic to theorize about postmodemity because "we have never beenmodem" yet.

Works Cited

Aarseth, Espen J. "Ergodic Literature." Introduction. Cybertext:Perspectiveson Ergodic Literature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1997. http://www.hf.uib.no/cybertextJErgodic.html(10 July 2000).

Alluntis, Felix, and Allan B. Wolter. Introduction. God and Creatures: TheQuodlibetalQuestions.John Duns Scotus.Trans. Felix Alluntis and AllanB. Wolter. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1975. xvii-xxxiv.

Armitage, John, ed. Paul Virilio:From Modernism to Hypermodernism andBeyond. London: Sage, 2000.

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