Hypertext and the Postmodern Pedagogy of the Enlightenment T he Journal of the Association for History and Computing, Vol. The World Wide Web makes use of a revolutionary new kind of writing known as hypertext. Hypertext thus radically emphasizes intertextuality, i.e. the relationships between texts. The advent of hypertext has been trumpeted as a pedagogical gold mine by a number of literature instructors.
Many instructors consequently see in hypertext an implicit threat to their professorial authority.
I intend to argue against this attitude by showing that hypertext can be a very valuable tool for college instructors. In 1996 I taught a course on the intellectual history of the European Enlightenment. I would argue, on the basis of this teaching experience, that the World Wide Web represents an important new pedagogical resource, especially for those who teach the Enlightenment. The presence of the World Wide Web in the classroom offers an instructor the opportunity to situate the ideas of the Enlightenment firmly within their historical context. This approach encourages students to view the concepts of the Enlightenment as historical ideas, as objects of inquiry rather than as universal truths.