Adelphi University Presents “The Dumbest Generation: Academic Engagement in the Digital Age"

Mark Bauerlein

Mark Bauerlein, Ph.D., accomplished professor and author, will speak on Wednesday, March 7, 2012, at 1:00 p.m., in the Thomas Dixon Lovely Ballroom in the Ruth S. Harley University Center of Adelphi University, 1 South Avenue, Garden City, NY. This will be the third lecture in the series on “Technology’s Impact: How It Shapes Our Lives.”

This event, free and open to the public, will be co-sponsored by the Adelphi University Faculty Senate, the Future Impacts and Perspectives of Technology Committee and the Offices of the President and Provost. The widespread use of digital tools that students use to keep in touch with one another has an effect on their academic lives. Is their behavior selfish and narcissistic? Has their ability to think deeply without being distracted been compromised? Their academic and social worlds are starkly divided. Dr. Bauerlein will explore the consequences of technology addiction on young adults, and how we can use digital tools and other resources to address these issues.

Mark Bauerlin is currently the professor of English at Emory University, where he has taught since 1989. He served as Director of the Office of Research and Analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts from 2003–2005. He is also the author of The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don’t Trust Anyone under 30) published in 2008. Dr. Bauerlein has published scholarly essays in PMLA (Modern Language Association), Partisan Review, Yale Review and Philosophy and Literature, and his commentaries and reviews have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Times Literary Supplement, Reason Magazine and The Chronicle of Higher Education. His selected publications and books include, Literary Criticism: An Autopsy, Negrophobia: A Race Riot in Atlanta, 1906, The Pragmatic Mind: Explorations in Psychology of Belief, Whitman and the American Idiom and The Digital Divide: Arguments for and Against Facebook, Google, Texting, and the Age of Social Networking. He earned his doctorate in English at UCLA in 1988.

For more information about this event, please visit events.adelphi.edu, or call the Cultural Events Hotline at 516.877.4555.