Grand Text Auto

Professor Flanagan participated in the Ditchley Foundation’s thinktank on the “Impact of AI on work and education.” Focusing on the large questions of our time, the group debated questions such as, “Should we be adopting a precautionary principle, waiting to see what unwanted effects might emerge? Or does that risk companies being outcompeted, and, in education, students left unprepared for the world of work they will be entering? Should students and teachers be encouraged to embrace AI now to learn through experimentation, or is that premature? and “If work is changing, then how does education need to adapt in response in order to prepare people to enter the world of work?”

February 14 is Valentine’s Day for many; this year, it’s also Ash Wednesday for Western Christians, both Orthodox and unorthodox. Universally, it is Harry Mathews’s birthday. Harry, who would have been 94 today, was an amazing experimental writer. He’s known to many as the first American to join the Oulipo.

Given the occasion, I thought I’d write a blog post, which I do very rarely these days, to discuss my poetics — or, because mine is a poetics of concision, my “poetix.” Using that word saves one byte. The term may also suggest an underground poetix, as with comix, and this is great.