on an upcoming philosophy paper

I have all my homework done for this quarter except a 12-15 page paper due Thursday. This is exciting – I’ve never had an easier finals week.

But it’s a little stressful because I want this paper to be good. I turned in an abstract of where I was thinking of going a few weeks ago. It read:

In his seminar paper, Michael Faris will argue that blogs can be used in the classroom to create a salon-style public sphere, as articulated by Jürgen Habermas, where it is safe to discuss issues critical to selves and to society. After discussing the various ways blogs are used in the classroom, and his own experience with blogs, Faris will discuss the difference between uses that he sees as strategic actions and as communicative action. Faris will explore the potential of blogs and online discussion for helping develop radical democracy, where communicative actions of recognition, narrative, and rhetoric (drawing from Iris Marion Young) can be put into discourse. Blogs may open up a safe mode of discourse because students can slow down their reactions and give time to think about and respond to each other in a less judgmental mode that takes time for recognition of ideas. Additionally, in a society whose dominant affective pedagogy may be shame, some students may feel more inclined to open up in this sphere that mixes the public and private compared to a classroom where they are directly confronted with the judgments of their classmates.

My friend Luke made fun of me for writing it in third person.

I feel like there is so much to read on this topic (as there always is), and I’m also thinking about scope, which is one of my major problems, and how to rein things in.

I just read a few articles about composition classrooms, democratic discourse, and online technologies, which were great, but I’m still not sure of where I’m heading. We’ll see…