Glancing at a wikipedia article about cut-ups, I ran into an interesting idea. Coined by the CrimethInc. collective in their book, Recipes for Disaster: An Anarchist Cookbook, behavioural cut-ups are a method of changing one's life by performing activities which are thought to cut up two socially acceptable, mundane behaviours and combining them to form a creative, amusing activity.

Although we specifically cut up language by physically cutting paper and rearanging fourths of pages and copying and pasting on plurk, these class activities are merely symbols of the greater cut-up structure of our nanotext class. Even The Ticket that Exploded, while intrinsically valuable, is merely a vehicle to illustrate the overall class concept.

Specifically, the class cut up the elements of time, space, and leadership hierarchy to question the arbitrary social norms within academia.

From the begining of class, Doctor Prichard told us that he wanted class to exist outside of the specified time frames of Mondays, Wednessdays, and Fridays from 1:00 to 2:20 PM. By providing blog and plurk assignments, he has encouraged us to communicate with each other when ispiration strikes, regardless of the time of day. By taking class communication outside of chosen time frame, Nanotext has cut up our typical homework behavior with our classroom discussion behavior to question the existing educational paradigm and propose a new learning tool.

Additionally, Doctor Prichard frequently questioned the space where we hold our tri-weekly class meetings. He encouraged us to look for other spaces to have class, searched buildings to see if other rooms would be available, and suspended his voice for a day to have class via plurk. Each of these statements and activities forced us to question our notion of environmental constantcy for class activities and cut up the spaces for our class, our homework, and our everyday lives.

Perhaps most importantly, Doctor Prichard is trying to cut up his own profession. By generating reasons for students to come to the front of the room, allowing students to guide the class discussion, and openly questioning the teacher-student relationship, Doctor Prichard is helping to cut up our categories of teachers and students, and the roles that individuals should play in college.

Although cutting paper and copying and pasting to create language cut ups is significantly interesting, behavioral cut ups are the most salient tool for our class to open the acedmic box.