Many new critical methods are being proposed. I am concentrating on one which ties in to the nature of digital media: linking. Criticism by linking, by forcing repeated encounter in different contexts, by unexpected reuse and intersections of discourses. This doesn't have to be done in hypertext, but the medium provides opportunities to put texts and images together in new ways, jumping over boundaries. But as well criticism of linking. What could have been done here? What is missing? What ideological preferences does this network favor or exclude?
To read difficult hypertexts we need readers who do not grasp too tightly the one bit of text or the one link before them, but can sense the network, and keep complex contexts in mind.
Similarly the university needs a community that does not grasp too tightly the one organizational area or one set of links before them, but can sense the network and other possible ways of organizing themselves.
So I'm agreeing with Kwinter that we must get beyond fascination with the present or with the single step link, and that the commodification of digital media can bring people so into an intense present flow that they can't be aware of their whole situation.
But I'm suggesting that critical abilities -- to sense more than the present item, to feel the connections and the absences, to allow interpretative frameworks to change and be aware and careful of their changes -- can be developed by maneuvers on the net itself. We don't have to retreat to critical enclaves. The key is in the links. Links can experiment, can move out on nomadic paths, they can break walls, but they can also make walls.