Texts in e-Tech and e-crit

Of course, the e-crit is a pun (see O'Gorman, E-Crit, U Toronto Press) on Derrida's ecriture [literally writing, but also that which mediates between message and reader, and how that ecrit has its own initiatives and visual non-phonetic non-logocentric paths] and on electronic critique. The question for us, how to appreciate the history of graphic design as a way to understand media-forms [oral, literate, electronic] historically and in terms of scholarly critical work. How will writing proceed as electronic forms now inflect even non-electronic forms? If scholarship must respond to, apprehend, and shape electronic forms, then what lessons does the history of graphic design offer us? What warnings? What clues? What paths to follow? Finally, if the issue is about the mediation [not some mistaken and over-simplified notion of sender/receiver], then how does design function over time, in the historical context, and with what specific elements? More importantly, Drucker/McVarish ask us to look in detail at concrete instances in an historical context -- it is that work that will make up the core of any study of texts and technology. Please comment and not sure where the conversation has shifted now -- to the webcourses site? offline? in person? or to other classes and concerns?