Is writing under threat from AI? Is reading a lost art? Did the invention of writing itself irrevocably change human nature? And are we entirely proscribed by language?

Concerns like these have a long history, and how we address them is not without consequences.

⁠Out of Print⁠ was held at Verdurin in June 2026. The symposium was organised with Edmund King.

In this second presentation of the event, Alison Brady challenges concerns about digitalisation as a threat to literacy. Arguments in favour of “slow reading”, for example, overlook that reading and writing have always been technological.

As the phenomenologist and provocateur, Vilém Flusser, discussed in his book “Does Writing Have a Future?”, writing technologies, from chisels to smart pens, have always been central to literacy practices, conditioning what is possible in the first place.

Alison M. Brady is an Associate Professor at the UCL Institute of Education. Her work focuses on phenomenological and existential philosophy as that which can offer rich descriptions of teaching and learning.

Her current research picks up Flusser’s question and considers the pedagogical nature of writing in an age of AI.

Find out more about ⁠Out of Print⁠.

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