Yesterday I wrote my way through to this point about the networks that have to be in place for a person's public writing to matter in the world:

• Messages are easy, easier than ever, but they go nowhere, they are useless, if the network has not been prepared. That network is a piece of open technology and a web of people already aligned with each other and inside each one of them the knowledge, attitude, and skills needed to pitch in.

I also posted this on Twitter:

• Despite revolutionary new literacies the major in English is untouched by change. Profs, you have tenure, dream up something to astound us!*

So what would a new English major look like, if one of its main goals was to connect students skillfully and thoughtfully with literacy in an age of astonishing literacy developments? And how would yesterday's idea about the nature of communication networks be reflected there?

What technology would you want students to learn? What people-connecting, people-organizing skills? What knowledge about how the world works, what attitudes toward problem-solving and citizenship, what reading and writing skills?

Would the study of literature enrich these questions and be enriched by them?

And so forth.

There are enough good questions out on the table, aren't there, to start imagining a new major in English for our time?

*I confess: that was a little mischievous of me, to put it that way, since I am an English professor.