Introduction

To understand why the negotiation of hierarchy in the classroom matters, it is important to first identify why, in the digital age, the University is relevant at all. An enterprising autodidact can, with enough time and drive, educate themselves to a roughly equivalent level of any college graduate using online resources that are even now freely available. As Richard Lanham argues, the old monopoly on knowledge resources, made possible by the scarcity and materiality of printed texts, is no longer held by the Universities, and the artificial scarcity of knowledge created by copyright is easily circumvented or negotiated through piracy or digital distribution. I argue, therefore, that in the modern context, the Humanities offer students three essential resources that are difficult to find online: structure, community and context. The presence of a dedicated instructor and a curriculum provides a filter through which the students can funnel the ocean of knowledge at their fingertips, and the presence of an interested body of peers and classmates gives easy access to the feedback and attention that basic writers need. The stakes of the classroom are also low compared to that of the workforce, allowing experimentation, exploration, and cultivation of new skills and identity among students. Too much structure, however, can stifle these benefits and turn the English class into a mere hurdle to overcome. This is the paradox of the Humanities: to use constraint in order to liberate. The first step towards resolving that paradox is open communication among students within the classroom context. Students must feel free to ask questions, offer advice, make mistakes, and even complain, but this must all happen within the confines of the class so that the sense of community and shared agenda is upheld.