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The Australian Library JournalBurning towers and ashen learning: September 11 and the changes to critical literacyTara Brabazon Manuscript received October 2004 This is a refereed article 'The truth is that force alone cannot end terrorist violence.'[1] Images still scar the mind: of skyscrapers sliced open like sardine cans, bilious black smoke erupting from concrete and iron, of grey streets and people, stained by tonnes of expelled paper, ash and dust. I was not in New York when this iconographic tragedy actually 'happened.' Like most experiences of social and political change in the post-industrial era, my relationship with September 11 was mediated by television, newspapers and the internet. There were no 'real' Twin Towers to witness: only endless interpretations circulating in the semiosphere. Cut to three years later. I am in a university committee meeting trying to stress the importance of studying Communication and Cultural Studies during this difficult time. Colleagues frame the paradigm as too theoretical, needing to make way for courses in public relations, journalism, film and radio production. Certainly my rationalisation is made more difficult because I am suffering through a curriculum that has barely changed in twenty years. Course titles appear spliced from a bad 1970s sociology conference: Culture and Everyday Life, Sexuality and Culture, Cultural Difference and Diversity, Television and Popular Culture. This is redundant knowledge, derived from a kinder era for the humanities and social sciences, when phrases like social justice and social responsibility were validated and affirmed, rather than mocked as liberal pluralism. It is a cliché that September 11 changed the world. More rarely discussed is how universities changed. At this time, a precise understanding and application of cultural difference, information management and critical literacy theory is an imperative, not a luxury. After September 11, teaching students became more difficult. Communication and Cultural Studies attracts a diverse cohort of international students, mature aged scholars, those with disabilities, and derived from many classes, races and sexualities. Teaching race, religion and cross-cultural communication in such an environment requires intense concentration. Four years ago, I could discuss political resistance in reasonably clear terms. Now the confluence between resistance and terrorism haunts my tutorials. Such definitions and discussions are even more complex when visiting Christian, white, American students and Moslem Malaysian students are in the same class. The intensity of teacherly focus, and the changes to curriculum required to balance these diverse ideologies, is of a high order. Since September 11, many aspects of a humanities education have changed. While my Department tries to excise Cultural Studies from its suite of offerings, I believe that there has never been a greater need for the paradigm to provide a strong voice of critique and questioning that can question neo-conservative contradictions. My hope has been - through both teaching and research - to build the interdisciplinary links between Cultural Studies and Library Studies. This alliance is important intellectually, and politically. Remembering the words of John Gray, force will not end terrorist violence. Education, librarianship and the development of critical literacy is a necessary facilitator of the process. This article focuses on a very precise relationship: the moving of students from a cultural literacy to a critical literacy. I argue that - after September 11 - teachers and librarians need to be more methodical and precise in assisting students to transfer - with reflexivity - between these formations. Through an application of literacy theory, curricula can provide a space for discussion of difference. The 'War on Terrorism' that provides a framework for our educational system and students requires translation, context and interpretation. Two parts structure my investigation. The first component explores the changing understandings of news, truth and identity, and how these movements impact on the construction and framing of education. The second section probes the mobilisation of critical literacy in this environment. Choose freedom'We need freedom from choice.'[2] It is neither glib nor rhetorical to argue that the world has changed since the collapse of the Twin Towers. Jonathan Schell, in his book The unconquerable world, revealed how the modern system of warfare was formed. It was based on four conflated histories: the democratic developments which brought greater numbers into the political system, the scientific revolutions that facilitated military technologies, the industrial revolutions that allowed these technologies to be manufactured, and colonialism which spread a European war system around the world.[3] He showed the consequences of European nations, between 1870 and 1900, grasping control over ten-million square miles of global real estate, where 150 million citizens lived. Snell realised that nuclear weaponry signaled an end to this global war system. The gulf in power between the imperialising West and the alternative structures and systems of the formerly colonised has created disparities, subjugations and highly conflictual ideologies. Being in control of the most advanced technologies of war is no longer enough to ensure domination. While the smoldering World Trade Centre is the most visible manifestation of the disempowered, deglobalising formation of al-Qaeda 'winning' over the greatest military power the world has known, such a mode of resistance has a history. In the late 1930s, Chinese communist guerrillas fought against the Japanese invaders. Similar strategies and tactics were deployed in the war between Vietnam and the United States. This model provides a shape for the (post)war being waged in Iraq. Describing the struggle against terrorism as a 'war' permits the thunderous and violent history of the twentieth century to bleed into the next: the justification of pre-emptive strikes, the deployment of an industrial-military matrix, and the construction of a hierarchy that values one form of economic and political system - one mode of 'freedom' - over others. The notion that 'war' is required to 'destroy' terrorism has become an assumed cliché of the last few years. There are alternatives to this neo-conservative imagining. Spain's Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, pulled his national forces out of Iraq. Much talk of weakness and appeasement ensued. However John Gray realised that this alternative strategy - of dropping the tug-of-war rope - has merit. In this neo-conservative fantasy world, only an uncompromising refusal to have any truck with terrorism stands any chance of defeating it, but in the real world things are done rather differently. Appeasement has been present wherever terrorist violence has been controlled successfully. It was an essential ingredient in the mix of policies implemented by successive British governments in Northern Ireland - one of the few genuine success stories in the history of counter-terrorism - and it is a major element of the process that has been made in ending decades of terrorist murder and suicide bombing in Sri Lanka. Appeasement is only another name for the willingness to negotiate.[4] Media reporting has been complicit in this denial of alternatives. On 10 April 2004, it was becoming obvious that at least 600 Iraqis had been killed and 1700 wounded in Fallujah. Yet only three days earlier, the British ITV Lunchtime News granted six minutes to the story, focusing on the killing of twelve US marines - which was mentioned eleven times. The reported sixty-six Iraqi deaths - which included civilians - were mentioned twice.[5] In such a context, the internet was able to capture at least some plurality in reportage. John Schwartz believed that 'The 2003 war in Iraq may well be referred to in the future as the "Internet war."'[6] It crystallised an already existing shift in the relationship between credibility, truth and popular culture. September 11 altered the way in which already existing web users managed new sources. As Lee Rainie, Susannah Fox and Mary Madden realised, Do-it-yourself journalism has been a staple of internet activity for years and the terrorist attacks gave new prominence to the phenomenon. In the days after the attacks, the Web provided a broad catalog of facts and fancy related to 9/11.[7] Such digital deployment of opinion and argument increased after September 11. During Iraq War II, seventy-seven percent of already existing users deployed the Web to discover information about the conflict. Intriguingly, war opponents, rather than supporters, reported that they increased the access and time on the internet.[8] While the reasons for this discrepancy are debatable, one interpretation is that opponents to the war were seeking out alternative views and truths to 'mainstream' news sources. Multi-platforming and cross-marketing, where already existing 'mainstream media' converge with emerging technology, are creating a media-glugged - rather than fertile - environment. In such a context, great emphasis should be placed on the development of a critical literacy that can deploy semiotic methods to probe and question regimes of visuality and aurality, text and images. Further attention is also required on internet sociology: probing the configuration of a new digital citizenry. An April 2003 survey in the United States found that younger, upper class, white, well-educated, urban and suburban parents were more wired than other groups.[9] Further, the researchers revealed that most non-users of the internet stated that they had no intention to enter the online environment,[10] and that 'basic literacy in any language are (sic) another barrier to full internet use.'[11] In the context of this report, 'literacy' is being defined as encoding and decoding text, rather than the deployment of interpretative skills. Access to these alternative sources of information is important at a time when news and current affairs is conflated with entertainment. This change means that critical literacies are necessary to sift data, ideologies and discourses. Particularly with the proliferation of blogs - which are now ranked and returned as results in Google searches - an individual's opinions may be granted equivalent standing to a scholar's detailed research.[12] In such an ideas-thick - rather than -rich - environment, a pre-emptive war on Iraq was not only waged but justified. In such a context, the internet offers alternative sources and ideas, but there is also greater space for ideologues to perpetuate their message. It allows fast, frequently unchecked rumor to gain currency over verified and credible journalism. There are consequences for relying on research shortcuts for news and information. This sound-bite culture has a major impact on the calibre of political debate. In 1968, the political sound bite was 43 seconds, which reduced to 9.8 seconds in 1988 and 7 seconds by 1996.[13] The speed at which ideas are expressed, and the truncated vocabulary utilised to express complicated ideas, make it difficult to encourage researched, theorised interpretations and intellectual rigour. This accelerated culture creates an impetus for accelerated literacy. There is not time to move - with reflexivity - from operational literacy, decoding signs, through to critical literacy, which interprets and contextualises the signs and codes to create knowledge. John Horrigan and Lee Rainie reported that 'the dissemination of the internet has transformed how many Americans find information and altered how they engage with many institutions.'[14] In developing curricula to facilitate critical literacy, questions must be asked about the impact of web-based information when compared to other media such as television. Marshall McLuhan was wrong: the medium is not the message. A computer is made up of hardware, software and data. It is an operating system that requires a social system to give meaning and context. Politics and ethics must be involved in any discussion of technology. Community borders of otherness and difference have calcified through the events of September 11. The emotional responses to those burning buildings means that it is difficult to critically evaluate how these events have been represented. Three thousand people lost their lives on that day. But 250 000 lost their lives in the Bosnia conflict, and up to one million people were killed in 1994 during the genocide in Rwanda. Every day, 24 000 people die from malnutrition and 30 000 children under five die from preventable causes. The symbolic power of September 11, through the destruction of the World Trade Centre - as the embodiment of neo-liberalism - and the Pentagon - the basis of the US military - grants this date a resonance beyond the sheer number of deaths. Until September 2001, foreign stories occupied half the time they did in 1989. This lack of global content creates an inward focus to American, British and Australian news. A coalition was willing to present, frame and mask particular views and voices. Jennifer Lawson, a Washington DC-based independent producer stated that, We as a nation were so surprised by what happened with 9/11. Had we known more about how others view us and our policies, I don't think we would have been so surprised. We get very little coverage from Indonesia or the Philippines, and almost no backgrounders, even though there are links to al Qaeda-type organizations. The news is always crisis-oriented, and then it drops off the radar screen. Even our coverage of Afghanistan dropped off.[15] Fox News Channel solved the problem of few foreign bureaus by reducing non-American news stories and the literacies to understand them. They spend little time on international material and stress domestic news. The station chose to be different from CNN or BBC World by promoting a patriotic and narrow performance of American-ness. Their program style is colloquial, ideological, insular and anchor-heavy. The consequence of this cultural shift is that few public figures speak in full sentences anymore. A detailed argument is redundant. Slogans become facts. Perusing abstracts and extracts replaces reading full books. Ponder these phrases:
Ideologies are carried through these phrases so that alternative trajectories are silenced. What was the Australian problem that caused a 'Pacific Solution'? If there is an Axis of Evil, is there a parallel Axis of Good? What is this Coalition willing to do? Technological change has increased the speed through which 'news' is proliferated, often encouraging unchecked rumour and gossip to overwrite and de-centre journalistic standards of ethics and reporting. Clichés replace informed commentary. The reduction in time between information availability and the creation of news narrative triggers a 'rip and read' mentality challenging standards of newsworthiness and accuracy.[16] The attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon morphed international politics and journalism. But how September 11 changed education is a question asked less frequently. Not only have vocabularies and literacies shifted, but so has our capacity to interpret, debate and think. Definitions of terrorism are determined within the dictionary of the definer. Terrorism challenged the sovereignty and solidarity of 'us' and equally solidified 'them.' Great military ascendancy after 'winning' the Cold War did not remove or eradicate vulnerability. September 11 demonstrated that the primary concepts through which international relations are run - such as core and periphery, first and third worlds - no longer function. Such a division leads to slogan answers to difficult questions. The closures of language, like Axis of Evil, Operation Enduring Freedom and Freedom-loving people, fabricate a solid enemy rather than a vague or unsubstantiated threat to security. George W Bush was clear on such a division. On CNN he stated that 'you are either with us or against us.'[17] Organisations such as al-Qaeda are anti-globalisation and trans-national, operating between the spaces of nations, cities and citizens. Their ideas move as freely as an e-mail or SMS, and their finances follow already established pathways of international capital. Instead of affirming good and evil - or us and them - we need more subtle approaches and methods to understand the networks of anger, resistance and hate that render binary oppositions both inadequate and redundant explanations for global problems. Anne-Marie Slaughter stated that the war against terror is 'All about language.'[18] Focusing on those images from September 11 and fear of the future means that students and teachers are less likely to ask questions about the cause and context for the attacks. The link between global inequalities and terrorism is rarely highlighted. The discourses of terrorism as currently framed ensure that anything is valid or appropriate if it is countering terrorism. The language of terrorism organises social relationships, creating floating and unsatisfying solutions to difficult problems. Meanings do change through time: Nelson Mandela and Menachem Begin have both been termed terrorists, only later to become statesmen. Therefore, new questions need to be asked. Deferring the inquiry into 'What is terrorism,' teachers and students may probe how the vocabulary, language and ideologies of terrorism function. Such a project moves teachers and students away from cultural literacy and towards critical literacy. Len Unsworth provides a strong model with which to negotiate these changes to literacies, by stressing historical continuities and making multiple definitions and arguments complementary rather than antagonistic. He sees no digital divide, instead recognising that 'written texts have always been multimodal,'[19] with distinct typefaces, layouts and graphology. He also affirms that no single literacy operates across the curriculum. This is a revelatory argument, because universities in particular are being shaped by phrases like 'generic skills' and 'generic competencies'. Such phrases allow the proliferation of teaching and learning committees without educational qualifications, such as exist in my School. With no educational qualifications, 'experience' - however that is determined - substitutes (and perhaps replaces) the need for credentials, scholarship and research. Instead, as Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis realised, 'the globalization of communications and labour markets make language diversity an even more critical local issue.'[20] This means that cultural and linguistic difference must be negotiated in a particular context, and requires precision and care in the construction of curriculum, assessment objectives and pedagogy. Marlene Asselin and Elizabeth Lee argue that the key for contemporary education is to teach people how to independently interpret information.[21] The development of interpretative capital requires resources and precise methods. The ideological crunch of September 11 and a war on terrorism has only made this imperative more urgent. The next section of this paper investigates what the study and use of critical literacy theories can offer in the current educational environment. Critical digital'So, the question for teachers should not be: what is the best way of teaching reading and writing?'[22] The term critical literacy has become an aspirational phrase for a mode of 'reading' students should be actualising. Yet concise definitions and applications remain ambiguous. Mary Macken-Horarik suggests that it 'problematises the relationship between meaning making (reading and writing) and social processes.'[23] She constructs a model of literacy that moves through the educational process.
Table based on Mary Macken-Horarik, 'Exploring the requirements of critical school literacy: a view from two classrooms,' from F Christie and Ray Mission (eds) Literacy and schooling, (London: Routledge, 1998) p78 Mary Macken-Horarik argues that critical literacy is not an 'add on' to literacy debates, but does require the initial development of instrumental modes. In other words, an everyday familiarity with spoken language cannot seamlessly (and concurrently) facilitate an awareness of ideological gaps and silences in a discourse. Macken-Horarik argues that there is a linear and progressive relationship between literacy modes, disagreeing with those who argue that students can simultaneously learn to read and challenge what they read. The difficulty with her model is determining the level of competency in one mode that allows students/citizens to move to other theories and paradigms. Macken-Horarik argues that when students/citizens are able to place questions in context, a level of literacy has been mastered. Therefore specific techniques and assessment structures are required to move students from their current literacy mode to another knowledge system. Falk confirmed this intricate weave of social and cultural context in defining competent literacy. It is not the ability of the educator to impart skills which will determine the outcome in the learning situation but the ability of the educator to relate the learning to the learners' changing perception of literacy and how the learners can take charge of its use in the newly constructed life picture which they should start to own as a result of the interaction.[24] The consequences of this powerful analysis for curriculum development are clear. Literacies cannot be imparted or transferred from teacher to learner. Instead, there must be multiple paths through readings, assignments and writing, allowing a diverse cohort of students to travel through knowledge in a way that has resonance for their social environment and experiences. In enacting such a method, literacy is not a 'problem' to be solved, but actualises specific abilities to address and develop in context. Barbara Comber and others refer to this as the literate repertoire.[25] The context of September 11 permitted transitory electoral survival and success of neo-conservative governments in the United States and Australia. Both these governments have summoned 'back to basics' literacy programs. Luke believed that such a framework 'builds and connotes a selective, interest-bound version of culture.'[26] The encoding and decoding of print becomes an endpoint rather than the start of another stage or mode of literacy. Such a model encourages conservative, insular and backward knowledge proliferation. Higher levels of literacy competence are then locked away from the disempowered as they 'master the basics,' perpetuating the distribution of knowledge and power in society. Allan Luke realised that 'the ways that literacies are shaped have uneven benefits for particular communities and, unfortunately, the outcomes of literacy teaching continue to favor already advantaged groups in these communities.'[27] This means that middle-class children have already existing literacy skills developed in the home reinforced at school.[28] For disempowered groups, there is a need to make educational expectations explicit. If literacy is framed as a singular set of standards then, as Diane Coyle realised, 'education systems inevitably produce first- and second-class citizens.'[29] Literacy practices build cultural capital, which then provide the framework for the development of more advanced interpretative skills. Luke argues for a 'critical social literacy'[30] which incorporates the capacity to manage and mobilise diverse texts for decision making and facilitates the development of critical thinking. The attention to quality assurance in higher education, framed through the public speculation about falling academic standards, has created debate about acceptable levels of achievement and performance. Brendan Nelson, on behalf of the Australian government, released the Ministerial discussion paper Higher education at the crossroads in 2002. Over the years there have been allegations that university standards are falling. Some critics contend that some universities now offer courses lacking intellectual rigour and that there has been a 'dumbing down' of universities. There are also concerns about deterioration in the caliber of students entering universities but the available evidence does not support this. There have been claims that 'soft marking' has become common practice, and the quality of education has generally been compromised.[31] The rhetorical devices in this extract are evocative. The Minister chooses not to critique the un-referenced claims of 'soft marking' or 'dumbing down,' but does qualify the argument that there has been a lowering of entry requirements to universities. The 'quality' of education has not been compromised but like all determinations of quality, it has changed. When I enrolled at an Australian university in 1987, I rarely saw my lecturers outside of formal class time. Such a lack of contact did not worry me. I went to the library, attended lectures and tutorials, completed my assignments, worked hard and finished my degree. I respected - and still do respect - those academics enormously. They taught me lessons by example, about professionalism, respect and scholarship. My fellow students were white, affluent, from university-educated families, and young. This is a completely different educational environment to the one in which I teach. My cohort is of mixed race and heritage, diverse in class background, and frequently the first member of their family to attend university. Nearly half of my students are mature-aged scholars. Most are in paid employment, with a university education low on their list of priorities. These social changes in the student cohort do not signify a deterioration of student 'quality.' There are great benefits in teaching such a diverse community. Cultural Studies comes alive as the theories of difference speak to the lived experience of scholars. However these students require much more time, effort and initiative from academic staff. Curricula must be precisely crafted and honed, 'unspoken assumptions' about reading, writing and critical thinking are overtly articulated, and pedagogical methods must be deployed with precision. The older modes of a university education - the sage on a stage - no longer function. But neither can the abrogated responsibilities of a reified student-centred learning. Instead, academics must become proactive and experienced teachers who are trained in pedagogy, curriculum and action research to ensure reflexive deployment of academic standards. The economic and political changes to the world in the last five years have had a wider impact. The benefit of internationalisation is the rapid transfer of knowledge, but there are also effects on the diversity of higher education. Affirmations of standards can mask an imperative for homogeneity. Education based in Perth should be different from that offered in New York. Actually, some of the most significant theories emerging since September 11 have mobilised the trope of de-globalisation.[32] There is important theoretical and applicable research to be conducted affiliating critical literacy, localism and de-globalisation, rather than simplistic affirmations of standards, sameness and homogeneity. Wittgenstein critiqued the impetus of globalisation, confirming 'the contemptuous attitude toward the particular case.'[33] The local, specific and particular holds value for critical literacy theory, offering a way to problematise the easy movements of information and capital. While 'empowerment' was the mantra of 1980s education,[34] debates in the 2000s seem punctuated by discussions of 'flexibility.' The irony is that - while flexible learning is a goal - concurrent surveillance of standards and rigid administrative and managerial protocols encircle education. Coyle realised the consequences of this paradox: For bureaucrats to pretend they can set out an appropriate curriculum and standards in every detail is both dishonest and an appalling failure of their responsibilities to the public. Bureaucratic planning failed as an economic system under Soviet communism and now it is failing under Western capitalism too. Yet it clings on grimly in ministries of education the world over, at the expense of our children.35 This managerialism in education is particularly inappropriate in encouraging a movement from operational to cultural and critical literacy, transforming vocabulary into language, and meaning into context. The environment after September 11 has validated Green, Hodgens and Luke's earlier realisation that 'literacy debates are fundamentally a contest of social visions and ideologies.'36 Those on the right wish to affirm 'basics,' thereby maintaining the political status quo and deflecting critique, while those on the left wish to encourage critique and questioning, moving beyond rudimentary skills of encoding and decoding. Literacy education is always a reminder and monitor of how differences in class, gender, race and age are configured and constructed in a particular historical moment. As Anderson and Irvine realised, 'people are not poor because they're illiterate: they are illiterate because they're poor.'[37] Social and economic conditions are determinants of literacy. Therefore, the surveillance of literacy, and the monitoring of 'standards' at schools and universities, normalise and homogenise a discussion of 'learning outcomes,' not contextual causes for inequality. The issue is how to critique the notion that there is a 'literacy problem.' A culture of blame and retribution is established. Individual teachers, students and schools are monitored for low standards and punished through threats to funding. Barbara Coomber argued that 'the anxiety about illiteracy goes beyond media induced public panic; it is also manifested in federal and state government policy and funding allocations, where the primary goal often appears to be to ascertain 'how bad things really are.''[38] She argues that all teacher education requires an attendant sociology of the communities in which learning takes place. Such socio-cultural initiatives show that singular definitions of literacy and curriculum are not helpful. Each medium requires specific attention in determining its strengths and weaknesses in the framing and shaping of information. The core concern in such a political educational environment is how to create cycles of reflection, to move beyond the reproduction (and recycling) of words through cut and paste, and create a critical and analytical perspective.[39] While the internet surfer has control over the sites they choose to visit, how they gain the skills to evaluate the material they access remains a concern.[40] The capacity to read text on the screen is not enough. Colin Lankshear confirmed that 'the point is that ability to encode and decode print (at whatever level of competence we care to stipulate) is not equivalent with being literate, and is by no means a sure foundation for effective, powerful and expansive literacy practices.'[41] To read a text is not to understand it. The ideology of skill development deflects and de-centres more precise probing and testing of critical literacies. With employers demanding transferable skills and competency, surface knowledges are celebrated. Yet such an imperative also means that education could be assessed and quantified in terms of cost and benefit.42 It seems too convenient - politically and socially - that in a time of war, violence and excessive consumerism that 'lifelong learning may be seen as a means of legitimising a capitalist requirement for a flexible and low-skills workforce.'[43] Just-in-time learning validates the role of the workplace in determining the goals of education. A focus on critical literacy changes this inflection, to arch beyond reskilling, flexibility and competency. Two years after September 11, John Tiffin and Lalita Rajasingham published The global virtual university. The ease with which three nouns transformed into two adjectives and a noun did not warrant comment in the book. Instead, neo-liberalism, techno-celebration and globalisation crush the social justice imperatives of education. This leaves us with a question that many people who have attended a university must at some time have asked themselves. As long as a person can read and write and has some self-discipline, why bother going to classes? To societies seeking to reduce the costs of tertiary education the question then becomes; instead of using transport systems to bring people together to communicate in classrooms, why not use the postal service? Better still, today, why not use the internet?[44] Astonishingly, in this text published in 2003, literacy is reduced the ability of a person 'to read and write.' The idea that a university develops critical literacy that requires more than self-discipline to be actualised - the notion that students learn as much through form as content - is beyond the interpretation of Tiffin and Rajasingham. What these writers do not address is how the student cohort is changing, requiring more precise teaching and curricula development alongside attention to motivation and pedagogy. At a time when Blackboard and WebCT are standardising education, academics are 'managing' a socially diverse classroom. Further, Tiffin and Rajasingham have not referenced the intricate body of critical literacy theory. Mary Macken-Horarik's argument that literacy is a multi-layered formation, requiring the development of encoding and decoding skills before higher levels of interpretation may be developed, is ignored by the writers of The global virtual university. They argue that the 'new' mode of internet-mediated teaching means that 'instruction can focus on whether a student can apply knowledge as distinct from whether they can write a lot.'[45] As someone who does 'write a lot' - and is fascinated to see this practice pathologised by fellow academics - I am concerned that they are suggesting that 'application' of knowledge can supposedly emerge independently of writing. Actually, more attention needs to be placed on writing and reading, as this is the path to critical literacy. Without reading and writing, research and interpretation, the many modes and modalities of higher order skills will not materialize. My other critique of The global virtual university brings this article back to its beginning. By stressing standardisation in the teaching process and creating the awkward anagram/avatar of JITAITs - Just in Time Artificially Intelligent Tutors[46] - there is no recognition that after September 11, the requirements of education have shifted. They discuss building a university curriculum responsive to global needs, unsupported by national government funding and based on commercial principles. However 'the world' is actually deglobalising, shredding back to the local, the specific and the particular. The reason why terrorism exists is because values do not move freely through space without consideration of context, difference and history. Teachers cannot assume that there is a single method to construct curriculum, assemble a reading list, or express an ideology. Generic competencies undervalue and unravel the social diversity and plural complexity of our classrooms and libraries. As Edwards and Cromwell realised, ...the world fell apart when 3000 people died on 11 September 2001. No one blinked an eye when aid agencies warned that even the threat of bombing imperiled 7.5 million starving Afghans, and when US bombing subsequently claimed more than 3000 civilian lives. In January 2002, the American media analyst Edward Herman reported that the first US combat casualty in Afghanistan had received more coverage in the US media than all the Afghan casualties combined.[47] There are no global knowledges that can 'explain' or 'justify' this discrepancy. Imposing a standard university curriculum and pedagogy across the world - thereby deskilling academics and librarians, dividing teaching from research and demeaning the importance of education and information management qualifications - will undermine thought, creativity, difference and critical literacy. After September 11 - even more than before - we require highly skilled teachers to monitor, write, negotiate and theorise our curriculum. There is a paradox in John Tiffin and Lalita Rajasingham's title. Their new educational institution may be global. It may be virtual. But it is not a university. Definitions of the real have real consequences. More attention should be given to definitions. For example, the word 'virtual' is defined as 'almost.' Therefore virtual learning is an odd combination of words. Those of us involved in education must decide if almost is good enough for our students, educational system and nations. 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Biographical information Tara Brabazon is an associate professor of Cultural Studies at Murdoch University and director of the Popular Culture Collective (http://popularculturecollective.com). Her research interests in popular cultural studies include sport, popular music, creative industries initiatives, city imaging, multiculturalism and education. She has published four books, Tracking the Jack: A retracing of the Antipodes, Ladies who Lunge: celebrating difficult women I, Digital Hemlock: internet education and the poisoning of teaching and Liverpool of the South Seas: Perth and its popular music. From Revolution to Revelation: Generation X, Popular Memory and Cultural Studies is published by Ashgate in March 2005. She is a previous winner of a National Teaching Award for the Humanities. t.brabazon@murdoch.edu.au http://www.brabazon.net http://popularculturecollective.com
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