"The Politics of Interface" by Selfe and Selfe calls for a re-examination and resistance to the dominant narratives of patriarchy, sexism, racism, and colonialism as seen in technological interfaces. The authors discuss how "most teachers of composition studies at the collegiate level are educated to deal with technology not as critics but as users" (496), which places these instructors--to Selfe and Selfe--as reinforcers of the ideologies mentioned above. Over and over again, the authors cite the racism, patriarchal, sexist and colonial underpinnings of technology, yet they risk early in their article of just stating this claim too often without much evidence (which comes later in the essay). 

I agree with many of the points contained in this article, although I do get bored with with re-hashing of standard, almost cookie cutter like hermeneutics to address problems of gender, race, colonialism, et cetera. Please don't misunderstand; this is all needed, but I wish a bit more care would have gone into the support, some of which I didn't find convincing. Speaking as a reader of Marx, Derrida, and Althusser, I wasn't convinced by the pseudo-Marxist critique of the "desktop" being evidence of male, white, middle- and upper-class privilege (486) just because it wasn't "a kitchen counter top, a mechanic's workbench, or a fast-food restaurant" (486-7). Sure, of course that would "constitute a world in different terms" (487), but thinking practically for a moment: does this make any sense? Why would a business tool be organized in any other way but with desktops, folders, files, et cetera at its introduction to the public markets? Not convincing to me. 

Again, I agree that the computer (with all of its mobile offshoots) is now more than ever a tool of corporate America to serve the will of a relatively select few, but I would have approached this analysis in a different way. I think the essay falls into the trap of taking on too much. How can an article of this length adequately such large issues of sexism, racism, colonialism, etc. in such a small amount of space without falling prey to applying stock progressive interpretations to a given "text." The point is that to some, who do not necessarily believe everything that sounds enlightened, this sort of analysis actually does harm to minorities by engaging in arguments based on reductive evidence. They might be right, but I think they get there the wrong way. I will admit to one prejudice that I hold (forgive me if any of you fall into this category): I have yet to read a book or article written by a married couple that I've found truly interesting. Anyone else feel that way, or is it just me? Curious...

Funny enough, Haas intersects with Selfe and Selfe's article in an interesting way: kitchen countertops! Haas mentions how "sometimes writers forego a desk altogether, preferring a kitchen table, or a lap, or the dashboard of a car [on which to compose]" (4). The kitchen countertop for Haas is not the ideological space confined to the margins of technology due to the patriarchal and corporate privilege of the "desktop" but rather the situation of writing in the material world, which has become even more true today with the proliferation of mobile devices media architecture. 

Haas sets out to prove that the materiality of writing is at the heart of other conversations that were happening at the time in the field of literacy studies at a time when the world was trying to figure out what kind of impact these burgeoning technologies would have on the world, literacy, and writing (3). Haas begins the first chapter of her book by drawing on the philosophical discussions ranging from Plato to Derrida related to the "technology" of writing. It's true that Derrida's "response to Plato's psychological concerns, on the other hand, occurs mostly at the level of writing as system" (8), but only in a system that is in constant flux with itself, a semiotic system. I mention this only because Haas is framing this as Derrida's response to the "Technological Question," and it's important to remember that the oldest use of the word technological in English (forgive me Selfe and Selfe for using English) means "belonging to or according with the terminology, techniques, or methodology of a particular branch of knowledge" (OED def. 1) another system of knowledge, both more formal, structural, and (at its heart) conservative than Derrida's analysis of systemic writing and the disruption of the writing/speech opposition.

She proceeds to examine the various philosophical and psychological frameworks for understanding writing as inherently technological. She mentions Engels who "postulated that, in labor, humans interact with nature via material tools . . . [and that] Vygotsky (1981a) brilliantly extended the concept of tool use to include sign systems, including writing, and he referred to such sign systems metaphorically as 'psychological tools'" (14). I paused here when I read this, thinking back to Derrida, and am concerned by Vygotsky's re-appropriation of language systems as tools, which are both inherently product-driven and mechanical (to Engels point elsewhere that humans, in labor, become tools of productivity themselves...not good). My bigger concern to language being a "tool" we "use" is that we don't just use words and language to express our ideas, as is often colloquially reinforced: we think in language. You can't separate the language system from the thinking itself. In the same way that Haas is concerned about a limited view of technology as "tools" (21), I too worry about "using" language as a tool and the loss that engenders. This speaks to larger terminological differences between the fields of philosophy and psychology, of course: I wouldn't expect a serious philosopher to refer to the growth of a child as "human development" (14). Nor would Engels, I imagine. 

--"technological." Def. 1. The Oxford English Dictionary Online. 3rd ed.