1. In week 2 we look at language, reading and writing, and print as distinct but interrelated information processes that individually and collectively have had a profound impact on how we perceive, understand, and think. Take 1 reading from each class this week (Marshack, Robinson, and Logan; Havelock, Innes, Gough; and Eisenstein, the AHR Forum, and “How Luther Went Viral”) and present an argument for how (in what way) you think any 1 of language, reading and writing, and print has shaped human information processing.

2. One of the founders of what has become the discipline Cognitive Science regards it as an interdisciplinary field specifically encompassing Anthropology, Computer Science, Linguistics, Neuroscience, Philosophy, and Psychology. He refers to its beginnings as the “dream of a unified science that would discover the representational and computational capacities of the human mind and their structural and functional realization in the human brain.” (George A. Miller, “The cognitive revolution: a historical perspective,” TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences, 7: 3, March 2003,” p. 143)

Take 1 reading from each class this week (Marshack, Robinson, and Logan; Havelock, Innes, Gough; and Eisenstein, the AHR Forum, and “How Luther Went Viral”) and, keeping Miller’s conception of Cognitive Science in mind (!), using one or two of the discipline perspectives noted above, construct your own short response regarding how/why you think any 1 of language, reading and writing, and print has shaped the human brain.

3. In historical study there has been much debate regarding the existence of a “print revolution.” What do you think? Take 1 reading from each class this week (Marshack, Robinson, and Logan; Havelock, Innes, Gough,; and Eisenstein, the AHR Forum, and “How Luther Went Viral”) and argue whether there is such a thing as a “print revolution.”

4. Are information and language the same thing or are they different? Yes or no. Take 1 reading from each class this week (Marshack, Robinson, and Logan; Havelock, Innes, Gough; and Eisenstein, the AHR Forum, and “How Luther Went Viral”) and explore your answer.

5. The word “communication” is derived from Latin’s communis (“to share”) and language, reading and writing, and print are each closely tied to communication. Take 1 reading from each class this week (Marshack, Robinson, and Logan; Havelock, Innes, Gough; and Eisenstein, the AHR Forum, and “How Luther Went Viral”) and analyze how you think any 1 of language, reading and writing, and print has shaped human communication