Brian
Stonehill stated in a book review:
Memory
is the lens that lets us look out of a single event across the whole of life
that led to it. Language is the light
that brings it to the mind’s eye…The writer, by providing the testimony of
living experience, illuminates the intellectual and cultural history of a
particular time.
The
Brian Stonehill On-Line Library is presented for your use from Pomona College, Claremont, California. Brian Stonehill (1953-1997) was a professor in the
English Department and Director of Media Studies at Pomona College (1979-1997). It brings Stonehill’s
vision of “using the Internet as a vital tool in education and information
delivery, reaching beyond a formal library and classroom.”
This
library consists of his writings and analyses in the fields of Media Studies,
including the text of his book What To Watch For In A Digital Age,
cultural criticism, academics (especially of Pynchon, Joyce and Gaddis), film
critiques, the making of the laser discs (Children of Paradise, D.W. Griffith,
Truffaut), book reviews, opinion pieces, speeches, and essays.
Brian
Stonehill was a teacher, a scholar, an opinion writer, a cultural essayist,
a lecturer, and a producer of laser discs and CD-ROMs of films. The writings
reflect an integrity to his ideals and to his visions.
His
opinions and essays reflect what Saul Bellow (Stonehill’s teacher at the University of Chicago) termed “a nucleus of earnestness… keeping what may be true from becoming
trivial.” This core of “integrity” is reflected in Stonehill’s hope to develop
a culture of understanding and an ethos of “value-of-life” in analyzing events.
In a true sense this library is a history—a history of events and thoughts
during those two extraordinary decades, 1975 to 1997. He examines Joyce and Pynchon through cyberspace,
the culture change through email, the need for visual literacy in the fields
of politics and education. It provides the universals to a particular time,
and focuses on the need for both truth and hope.
It
is an odyssey of a young professor, at Pomona
College, California, who brings a classic approach to his English and Media
teachings, but goes beyond the “hallowed halls” and provides a world focus
to his teachings. He saw the world in personal terms, in academic terms, in
national and global terms, and in universal terms. He explored the events
that happened during this time, analyzed their impact on the culture, and
discussed how the culture was permanently changed by those particular events.
Brian
Stonehill was a master teacher. His thinking and creativity were used for
teaching and sharing. Through this library, he continues to teach
and to share his perspectives and viewpoints and knowledge.
This
library is dedicated to you, the “WEBSTERS.” (Brian used “Websters” to describe
“students” in his address to the Class of 1996) As you search for information,
be inspired by his never ending vision for each human to contribute intellectually
and creatively to make the world a kinder and more humane place for all of
us to live.
From Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot:
Time
present and time past
Are
both perhaps present in time future
And
time future contained in time past.
The writings, perhaps, direct the
reader to recognize the direction of Stonehill’s to establish a new culture
(see GAIA writings), a “cyberspace culture”—“one that holds strong ethics,
an understanding ethos, and the need for collaboration.”
P.S.
Walter Walkarput was a punning pseudonym used by Brian Stonehill in his
early book reviews and short stories that appeared in The Chicago Review. You can receive a copy of the CD-ROM Understanding D.W. Griffith from Pomona College. Fax requests
on official educational institutional letterheads. They are gifts from Pomona
College for educational purposes.