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Rethinking the Canon of Ancient Near Eastern Art in the Internet Age

  • Marian H. Feldman EMAIL logo

Abstract

The formation and perpetuation of intellectual canons – as consensually agreed upon corpora considered most significant and representative of a time, place or person – rely heavily on closed systems of knowledge. The bound-paper book exemplifies such a closed system and has been a primary form of constructing and disseminating canons of ancient works. The Internet, however, challenges the very structuring principles of knowledge production inherent in books, offering potentially boundless networks of unorchestrated knowledge bits. As scholars, teachers, and students turn more to the Internet for publication, research, and learning, sharply defined canons face disruption. This article analyzes some of the structuring principles of knowledge production and dissemination in the specific case of ancient Near Eastern art, first considering traditional book-based textbooks. These textbooks follow a model of linear temporal development that unfolds from the first to the last page. It then explores the academic trend toward edited, multi-authored compendia as a concurrent development with the open-ended, networked structure of the Internet. Both vehicles of knowledge production offer more diverse sets of works and multivocality; the Internet in particular permits a radical break from authored and edited narratives. Last, the article considers some of the possibilities, as well as limitations, inherent in the Internet, presenting several existing Internet-based platforms with a specific focus on pedogogy, in order to consider the implications and consequences for knowledge production and dissemination in the Digital Age.


Article Note: This article was first written in January 2015, but for various reasons lay dormant for many months before being revised and submitted for publication. The information regarding Internet resources dates to this first writing. Since then, I have embarked on my own online publication project, with more than ten open-access teaching modules available on OpenStax CNX (cnx.org).

I am grateful for the many colleagues who have read this article in its various stages and provided helpful feedback, among them: Paul Delnero, Macie Hall, Jake Lauinger, Cassie Mansfield, Anne McClanan, two anonymous reviewers and the editors of JANEH.


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Published Online: 2017-6-22
Published in Print: 2017-6-27

© 2017 Walter de Gruyter Inc., Boston/Berlin

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