Oral Tradition and the Internet: Pathways of the Mind
The Center for Studies in Oral Tradition is pleased to announce the publication of the late John Miles Foley's book, Oral Tradition and the Internet: Pathways of the Mind (Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield: University of Illinois Press, 2012). A web-based version examines the title terms' homologies through 116 entries, more precisely, nodes, that harness the medium's relational power for exploration. In the spirit of the author's commitment to the radical democratizing of knowledge, art, and ideas, the Website is available to all free of charge at http://www.pathwaysproject.org.
Since any characterization of the project's contents here would be otiose, I turn to my main point: I invite you sincerely to participate with the Pathways Project. A fundamental objective of the Pathways Project is to encourage an ongoing dialogue in which the project "is to serve as a heuristic, as a way into some of the most important media challenges of our time. It does not pretend [...] to do anything more (or, for that matter, less)" (Oral Tradition and the Internet, xii).
Just as a successful oral tradition relies upon co-creation, "the network licenses (and requires) your ongoing participation" (ibid. 21). The Pathways Project extends an open invitation to join the conversation by pointing your browser to http://www.pathwaysproject.org/pathways/show/Contributions and becoming a contributor. As Professor Foley noted, "the virtual world [...] works by engaging networks that must always remain under construction and open to individual, emergent navigating" (ibid. 249).