Mark Taylor: Bringing the Academy into the Electronic Era by Sara Helberger Harvard Alumni Review February 1998 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 To talk to Mark Taylor, PhD '73 religion, professor at Williams College and director of its new Center for Technology in the Arts and Humanities, is to take a surprising and untraditional journey through the history of Western thought. Listening to him move effortlessly from religion and philosophy to art and architecture to the electronic revolution, it's easy to see why this highly creative professor is no longer associated with any one department but instead works for the school at large. Taylor began his teaching career in the Department of Religion at Williams in 1973, and in many ways the discipline still shapes his thinking. Yet his courses are now cross-listed in philosophy, religion, architecture, and even studio art. He is not only the first director of the new Center, but also the force behind its creation, and, although he has made the time to publish 15 books and countless articles, his dedication to teaching won him the 1995 College Professor of the Year award from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. This honor was partly a response to his work pushing teaching in new directions. In 1992, he and Finnish professor Esa Saarinen developed a course called Cyberscapes, in which students explored the philosophical, political, and social implications of new electronic technologies and media. The subject matter at the time was still brand new, but what was most unusual about the class was the format itself; Cyberscapes was the first "global seminar," using teleconferencing technology to link students at Williams and the University of Helsinki for a joint weekly seminar. Although when he conceived the idea Taylor knew nothing about the technology, he was encouraged by his wife, Dinny, who works at the Center for Computing at Williams. "She got me through math in high school, and she's been taking care of that end of things ever since," he jokes.