“just as bad writing is not an argument against writing, bad remix is not an argument against remix” – Lawrence Lessig, 2008
“We define the term [remediation] differently, using it to mean the formal logic by which new media refashion prior media forms. Along with immediacy and hypermediacy, remediation is one of the three traits of our genealogy of new media.” -Bolter and Grusin, 1999
“It seems facile and callous to suggest that war has always been mediated and that these new technologies are simply refashioning earlier media forms” – Jay David Bolter, 2003
“Writing in the digital age increasingly requires remixing, that is, the transformative reuse and redistribution of existing material for new contexts and audiences. Creation, innovation, and invention in the digital age demand that information be widely shared and widely reused; digital writing practices require “plagiarism” (in some sense).” – Porter & DeVoss, 2006
About this course
In this seminar we will read, watch, and listen to key contemporary texts that inform cross-discipline conversations on remix, remediation, and recomposition. This seminar will foster conversations where we learn from each other and our various subject positions as scholars, teachers, and practitioners of literature, rhetoric and composition, and creative writing. Together we’ll discuss the significance of “remix culture”, “composing for recomposition,” multimodal composing, or cycles of remediation. We will have at least one legal expert discuss the copyright implications of these changes, and as a class we will theorize how these interdisciplinary conversations impact traditional notions of authorship, originality, academic integrity, economics, and the law.
We will explore some of the following questions:
• What is plagiarism in the era of remix? What is composition pedagogy in the era of remix?
• What are the economics and copyright implications of remix?
• What is the Creative Commons? What is fair use? What are the policy implications of remix?
• How does “remix culture” challenge traditional notions of composing?
• What are some examples of how remix functions as an argument?
• What is remediation? How does remediation intersect with remix culture?
Class Requirements
One critical paper (eight to ten pages, conference length): 40%
Several out-of-class remix assignments (analog and digital): 30%
Reading presentation: 10%
Online reading journal (blogger, wordpress.org): 20%
Skype guest speakers (Booked)
Martine Courant Rife, JD, PhD, Lansing Community College and Michigan State University
Martine Courant Rife is admitted to practice law in Colorado and Michigan, with an active license in Michigan. Rife recently received her PhD in Rhetoric & Writing at Michigan State University (December 2008). Her concentration is in intellectual property and technical communication. Additionally, she is a tenured professor of writing in the Communication Department at Lansing Community College in Lansing, Michigan, and has over nine years experience teaching composition, including technical writing at both the university and community college level. She’s been teaching virtual courses for over six years. Her research is at the intersection of intellectual property, rhetorical invention, authorship, and law. She is the 2007 recipient of the Frank R. Smith Outstanding Journal Article Award from the Society for Technical Communication.
Sue Webb. PhD Candidate, Michigan State University
Sue writes about life experiences, often through creative non-fiction, sometimes using visual rhetoric, mixing, meshing, merging alphabetic texts, images, audio, and video with plain talkin’. Sue’s scholarship situates her at the crossroads of professional writing, class studies, digital rhetoric, visual design, multi-media, and first-year composition. She is the author of several recent composition studies texts on remix, including a piece in Computers and Composition Online and Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy.
Multimedia
Various online materials from Paul Miller (DJ Spooky)
• Rebirth of a Nation: http://djspooky.com/art/rebirth.php
• Interviews: http://www.djspooky.com/articles.php
• http://video.ils.unc.edu/details.phpvideoid=10211&surrogate=storyboard
Sue Webb’s Grand Theft Audio and Remix resources:
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hN-IzWY3_E
• http://www.wordslingingwoman.com/RemixRepository/resources.html
TotalReCut: What is Remix Culture?
• http://www.totalrecut.com/contest-winners.php
Books (non-fiction)
Bolter, Jay David. (1991). Writing space: The computer, hypertext, and the history of writing. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Cope, Bill, & Kalantzis, Mary. (Eds.). (2000). Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social futures. New York: Routledge.
Lessig, Lawrence. (2004). Free culture: How big media uses technology and the law to lock down culture and control creativity. New York: The Penguin Press.
Lessig, L. (2008). Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy. New York: The Penguin Press.
Welch, Kathleen E. (1999). Electric rhetoric: Classical rhetoric, oralism, and a new literacy. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Vaidhyanathan, Siva. (2003). Copyrights and copywrongs: The rise of intellectual property and how it threatens creativity. New York: New York University Press.
Books (fiction)
Austen, J., & Grahame-Smith, S. (2009). Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance – Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!. Philadelphia: Quirk Books.
- Suggested: Burroughs, Gysin…
Journal Articles (there will be more)
DeVoss, D. N., & digirhet. (2008). Old + old + old = new: A copyright manifesto for the digital world. Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy, 12 (3). Available: http://www.technorhetoric.net/12.3/index.html
DeVoss, D. N., & Webb, S. (2008). Grand theft audio. Computers and Composition Online. Special issue: Media convergence. Available: http://www.bgsu.edu/cconline/CConline_GTA/
Kimmage, Daniwl, & Ridolfo, Kathleen. (2007, July). The war of images and ideas: How Sunni insurgents in Iraq and their supporters worldwide are using the media. Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. Retrieved July 20, 2007, from http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/06/830debc3-e399-4fa3-981c-cc44badae1a8.html
Manovich, Lev. (2002). Who is the author?: Sampling / remixing / open source. Retrieved December 30, 2005, from http://www.manovich.net/DOCS/models_of_authorship.doc
Porter, James E., & DeVoss, Dànielle Nicole. (2006, April). Rethinking plagiarism in the digital age: Remixing as a means for economic development. Presentation at the WIDE Research Center Writing : : Digital Knowledge Conference, East Lansing, MI.