Rhetoric

Costs of Care has an annual essay contest in which they collect essays by medical professionals about how financial matters factor into the care they offer to their patients. These are the winners:

Doctors Cannot Be Expected to Be Financial Engineers

An Expensive Pain in the Neck (this one is by a patient)

Treating Heart Failure on a $100 Budget

I just got an iPhone about a month ago, and I've been taking advantage of the check-in feature from time to time. I can't help but notice where people are when they choose to hit the check-in button, though. The laundromat? McDonald's? Walmart? The Exxon station? The free clinic? Not so much. Check-ins are all part of the crafting of the person we want to show people. Why else do we do it? To let others know where we are in case they're also there? We would have seen them already anyway. To let people know where we are if they're nearby?* They probably wouldn't actually come to that place to see us, for fear of seeming stalkerish (I wouldn't take it that way).

I'm as guilty as anyone of checking in at certain places: the gym, the public library, the science museum, the farmers' market, church. These places tell people what -- that I care about being a good mom, that I care about health and intellectual enrichment. One of my FB friends has great check-ins: Big Lots, Long John Silver's. Oh well. I suppose I ought to just not check in at all, but it's kind of fun; the novelty hasn't worn off yet. I think I'll try checking in from a place I go today that's not so obnoxiously in line with my perception of my idealized self.

* Although I have to say, when I go to Florence, AL soon to see my family and friends, this will be exactly why I check in; I want to bump into as many people as possible.

I'm excited about this year's CCCC-IP Annual. We're looking at having at least six articles in the 2009 publication, which will be my third as editor. I plan on getting my article for it finished in the next week or two. Usually the articles cover the developments in copyright and intellectual property law over the past year; this year will be no different except for a couple of reviews of books that were published in the latter half of 2008 that I decided to make exceptions for.

But for my article, I wanted to cover something that happened in 2009 if possible. I did some reading through the 2009 archives of the Electronic Frontier Foundation's blog and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society's site, and then I found the topic.

In 2009, both the Recording Industry Association of America and the Electronic Frontier Foundation released curricula for teaching children about copyright and intellectual property. The RIAA's curriculum, intended for grades 3 through 8, is quite one-sided. The EFF's curriculum seems to be geared toward grades 9 through 12 and examines copyright in a more complex way. I just finished writing a review of Jessica Reyman's new book The Rhetoric of Intellectual Property: Copyright Law and the Regulation of Digital Culture, and I already see so many connections between her argument, which examines the rhetorical workings of the content industries' argument (she terms this "the property stewardship narrative") and the copyright activists' argument (which she calls "the cultural conservancy narrative"), and these curricula: how these narratives are told to young audiences. I love it when I can be invigorated by my research and writing. I'll link to the Annual once it goes live, of course. I expect that will be in early March; I want to publish it before the conference and before my rambunctious little girl is born.

Vote for which political cartoon you think is the best. I am leaning toward number 1:

or number 9:

The Intellectual Property Caucus at CCCC was quite productive this year, as always. Thirty-one people attended, and we started the meeting off by plugging our projects and celebrating the year's accomplishments when it came to intellectual property issues:

First, there's the publication of Stephen Westbrook's collection Composition and Copyright: Perspectives on Teaching, Text-making, and Fair Use . Also, Charlie Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky have created Writing Spaces, an open access, Creative Commons licensed space that can be used in lieu of a textbook (or in addition to one). Then, following our usual format for the meeting, we heard from the Intellectual Property Committee. The big news there was that we've been invited to write a regular feature for the NCTE Inbox, and Martine Courant Rife volunteered to spearhead that effort. (By the way, if you click the link, you'll see that you CAN subscribe to the Inbox on RSS. That was at issue during the meeting.)

Then we introduced our action tables, met for our breakout sessions, and reconvened to plan actions for the next year. For the purposes of the notes here, I am going to paste the abstract submitted by the action table leader, then right below it put my notes from that action table's report. The notes are notes I took during their reports in the caucus meeting, and since I didn't sit in on these discussions, they're kind of choppy and note-y. And as always, some of the action tables ended up merging, so what I have here isn't exactly what was in the original proposal re action tables.

Exposing Misunderstanding of Fair Use in the Case of the Harry Potter Lexicon

It's disappointing that Steve Vander Ark's proposed HARRY POTTER LEXICON
is coming under fire from Potter creator J. K. Rowling. However, the
attacks on the lexicon from the general public---visible in comments on
news stories and weblogs---are far more disturbing. Vander Ark has been
called a plagiarist, a thief, a crook, and a liar. The lack of support
for his work shows a profound misunderstanding of fair use Speaker #1
wishes to engage in two ways: (a) by sharing strategies for discussion
of fair use; (b) through encouragement of use of the rights all of us
have to create similar works which fairly use copyrighted content.

Notes and Next Actions:

different kinds of misunderstandings of fair use:
1. partial knowledge: some knowledge but misapply it
2. conflating legal and ethical issues: plagiarism of something in the public domain: ethically problematic but legally OK
3. ppl not knowing who to appeal to, governing bodies relevant. vague notions of punishment but not knowing where auth lies
4. misunderstanding of terminology
5. not understanding purpose of fair use

action items: fair use for dummies document
list of common misconceptions for teachers
more formal study: look @ court cases

Copyright, Fair Use, and Digital Delivery of Class Reading Materials

A recent lawsuit brought by a group of academic publishers against
Georgia State University has brought to our attention the dangers of
limiting educators’ Fair Use rights to distribute class reading
materials in digital form (Cambridge University Press et al. v.
Georgia State University). Speakers #2, 3, and 4 will discuss what’s
at stake in the recent debate over application of the Fair Use
exemption to the use of copyrighted works in coursepacks, library
e-reserves, and other forms of online delivery of reading material to
students. They will then take comments that may contribute to the
development of a position statement, directed to academic publishers,
that would encourage a rethinking of the current business model for
copyright permissions for educational use.

Notes and Next Actions:

concerns: for education: what can we do, what can't we do when it comes to digital delivery of online materials
article in CCC in 1998 on fair use. "Use Your Fair Use: Strategies toward Action." 2009
reissuing of article like that in light of course packs, ereserves, etc.
advocacy issues: 4Cs position statement would make a stronger claim re fair use guidelines and digital materials
georgia state case: intervention? 4Cs could begin exploring/supporting defendants in that case?
4Cs educate organization. american library assn. web site. write to house judiciary cmte regarding that decision. action letter. NIH, but implications for government sponsorship of research.
listservs: request to write

Open Access Publishing and Institutional Repositories

Speaker #5 will report on the progress of an OA Task Force that has
been brought together to educate CCCC/NCTE constituencies about OA
options and about mandates to provide open access to federally funded
research, as well as to develop guidelines for meeting those mandates.

Okay, this is the action table I participated in, so I can give a more thorough treatment of it. Most of our discussion was about the following:

Open Access and "The Extended CCC"

As has been discussed on the blogs, notably here and here, a lot of people aren't happy with the recent decision to move some of College Composition and Communication's features, such as review essays, interchanges, re/visions, book reviews, etc. online. My main concern is the open-access implications of that, which Karen Lunsford and I discussed in our action table meeting. For example, if I want to read "Rhetorics of Critical Writing: Implications for Graduate Writing Instruction" by Laura R. Micciche, a review essay in the most recent issue, I have to go here and click the title, then if I'm not logged in with my NCTE member number (which I pay an annual fee for), I get the following:

Please log in to view this journal PDF file: /library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/CCC/0603-feb09/CCC0603ReviewRhetorics.pdf.

What are the implications for future access to this article, only the first paragraph of which will be in the print journal? Libraries, and by extension teachers and students, who already pay a subscription fee for the print and electronic versions of the journal, will not have access to these features unless they pay to join NCTE. Our action item regarding this issue is to query the Executive Committee: what provision has been made for permanent access to TECCC for libraries? The caucus members generally felt that this was the most alarming and pressing issue related to our field and open access.

We also talked about other issues, though, such as:

1. a letter to the executive committee recommending changes to NCTE's journals' copyright policy:
* change the contract to allow authors self-archiving of copies of their articles on their personal web sites
* allow open access to archives the way that JAC does

2. writing a resolution draft about open access -- open scholarship, open teaching materials, maybe even open access textbooks, but we thought that since many in our field write textbooks and textbook publishing houses give us a lot of support, we might have more buy-in with 4cs membership if we leave textbooks out of it and just focus on research

3. joining the Alliance for Taxpayer Access

Students' Rights and Responsibilities in IP

Students are facing more choices for how to treat their own
intellectual products and those of others. It would be helpful for
both instructors and their students to be aware of the legal, ethical,
and cultural ramifications of those choices. Speaker #6 will examine
students' rights in and responsibilities for treating their work
within the realm of intellectual property law issues.

students thinking of themselves as AUTHORS. plagiarism guidelines...turnitin.com
if teachers aren't allowed to use it, they'd be forced to teach plagiarism in more complexity
let students opt in or opt out?
teachers don't have the right to use student writing in college english -- would have to get permission.
in what ways does turnitin repurpose student writing?
NCTE Inbox: we wish there was a simple way to teach teachers to talk about turnitin
ways other professors use the service?
something more user-friendly for NCTE K-12 and college
conversations with students about the business model
for paraphrasing exercises in class, ok use of turnitin

There was also an impromptu action table about research projects in IP. Here are my notes on that:

1998 Computers & Composition special issue on IP: plan to revisit that in a new special issue.
cultural cannibalism: CFP out before C&W
visual/digital rhetorics for kairos
CCCC panel together next year
sharing scholarship, continuing projexts: regular discussion table each year on research, momentum.
1/2 hour for everyone about research?
call out on lists: course materials about authorship, plagiarism, copyright, collaboration, contract negotiation, OA, OS, free speech/privacy/censorship

The following material is somewhat disturbing but will be of interest to anyone doing critical race theory and history of rhetoric. These are pages from my grandfather's grade school primer, Geographical Nature Studies: For Primary Work in Home Geography, by Frank Owen Payne, copyright 1898.

I'm being asked by a few folks to circulate the following call for proposals for the next Feminisms and Rhetorics conference, which follows below. Bravo to Michigan State for taking out the parentheses -- as in feminism(s), rhetoric(s). If we're going to use the plural, let's use the plural.

One bit of criticism I have, which isn't necessarily directed toward Michigan State's department, or even the Feminisms and Rhetorics conference, is that I wish we could start putting conference sites in ONE place, like all FemRhet conference sites could be on the Coalition's site. We tried to do that with Computers and Writing, but it didn't catch on, as Stanford did their own site for 2005's conference, Texas Tech did their own for 2006, Wayne State did the same for 2007, which doesn't seem to be there anymore, and UGA created a site for 2008's conference.

The problem for Feminisms and Rhetorics, though, is more serious, I think. At least most of the Computers and Writing conference sites are still available. Try to go to the conference site for 1999, and it's not there. 2001's conference in Decatur, IL doesn't have a site available either. Ohio State's 2003 conference site redirects to the English department's main page. I couldn't find sites for Michigan Tech's 2005 conference or even the most recent one, 2007's conference at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

I understand if universities want to create their own sites for conferences they're hosting. Still, I don't think these sites should be thought of as ephemera. They're historical documents about fields of study. I think it's important to at least archive the files at some stable site that represents the organization and isn't hosted on a particular university's web space. If Michigan State does this, I will be very impressed.

Michigan State University / East Lansing, Michigan / October 7–9, 2009 *

The 2009 Feminism(s) and Rhetoric(s) conference will be hosted by the
Rhetoric & Writing program at Michigan State University. We invite proposals
that:

• *reflect* the complexity and diversity of who "we" are as a scholarly
community;
• *make manifest* the deep structure of the connections, intersections, and
overlaps that actually
make us a community;
• *help articulate* who "we" are as a deliberate community of scholars, and
what that means about our responsibilities and relationships to one another
across scholarly areas and institutional positions;
• *highlight* scholarly and teacherly activities that deliberately create
space for more complex notions of scholarship and teaching within the
discipline of Rhet/Comp;
• *include* and significantly engage communities outside of the academy;
• *focus on* antiracist pedagogies and scholarship; present
interdisciplinary scholarship in Afrafeminist Rhetorics; American Indian
Rhetorics, Chicana Rhetorics, Asian American Rhetorics, post/neo-colonial
rhetorics;
• *highlight* the intellectual traditions of women's communities, especially
communities constellated around specific identity markers such as race,
ethnicity, class, sexual orientation issues, geographic origins;
• *explore* the relationships between written, oral, and material discursive
production;
• and other topics that *address* the connections in the conference theme.

We also welcome proposals on relevant topics not directly addressed above,
that significantly engage disciplines other than Rhet/Comp, and that have
consequences for communities located outside of the academy.

Although traditional presentations are acceptable, we encourage participants
to create formats that go beyond the read-aloud academic paper. Interactive
sessions that include discussions, dialogues, and performances are
especially welcome. Proposals should be uploaded to the FemRhet 2009 web
site (www.femrhet2009.org), and can be for:

• 20-minute individual presentations (250-word proposals)
• 90-minute 3–4 member panels (500-word proposals)
• 90-minute workshops or roundtables (500-word proposals)

Please plan to submit a title, a proposal the length indicated above, and a
program-ready, booklet-friendly 50-word blurb for the presentation.

Proposal System Open: December 15, 2008
Proposal Deadline: February 1, 2009
Acceptances Distributed: April 30, 2009

For more information: Contact Malea Powell (powell37@msu.edu), Nancy DeJoy (
dejoy@msu.edu), or Rhea Lathan (lathan@msu.edu).

The pedagogical imperative, Kopelson argues, is part of a problematic theory-practice relationship in rhetoric and composition studies. "Theory" comes with at least a couple of problems for rhetoric/composition. First, we end up doing hand-wringing over our anxieties that theory doesn't help people, and we ask, like Kopelson brings up, "whom does the theory serve?" Second, we fret over the argument that we only use other people's theory; we don't DO (our own) theory. I like what Kopelson says on 765: "Theory performs the invaluable service of tracing, often in order to fracture, the very consensus around 'reason.' This seems to me to be neither a 'mere' nor a 'sterile' exercise."

The material about theory/practice is most interesting to me insofar as it's connected to interdisciplinarity. Graduate students surveyed by Kopelson wanted the field to become a vibrant interdiscipline with cultural and political significance, but they expressed concern that we're not there yet. A couple of quotations:

[Survey respondents] defined theory, variously, as something we 'draw on,' 'borrow,' 'import' from other, 'different fields of knowledge' in order to 'apply' and 'use.'

That is, James seems to find our import-and-apply approach a testament to the very interdisciplinarity that he and so many other of our 'new converts' desire for the field. And in a way it is. But this approach attests to a certain, limited kind of interdisciplinarity only; to what Ellen Barton calls a 'one-way interdisciplinarity' (245), and also to a formulaic mode of inquiry that has for too long characterized composition’s relationship to other fields of study (p. 766).

Okay, fine. I want to make two points here. First, with all the articles, books, reviews, etc. being published, most people do well to read all the scholarship in their own fields. So if people in other fields aren't reading rhet-comp, maybe we shouldn't take it personally. Second, as a corollary, reception of our work in other fields isn't the kind of thing we can control.

This next quotation is a kicker, in my opinion (p. 768):

Though we have long foraged about in other bodies of knowledge—and, yes, to some innovative and crucial ends—we are still primarily importers only, consumers, an 'interdisciplinary' field, if it can be said that we are one, with little to no interdisciplinary influence. (Exceptions to this trend are perhaps our influence on assessment as a field and, in some locales at least, on secondary English education.) As Spellmeyer reminds us in 'Marginal Prospects,' even within the confines of the academy, 'College English and CCC cannot truthfully be said to circulate in the same universe as Critical Inquiry or Cultural Critique' (163).

Critical Inquiry? This is what we're going for? Is it that we want as many people to read our journals as these journals, or that we want to write the same kind of articles as Critical Inquiry and Cultural Critique? In either case, this seems like an "I wish I were taller" kind of goal -- not that they're tall and we're short, but that our scholarship is different, and that's okay. I want to raise another couple of points about interdisciplinarity. First, from Kopelson (p. 768):

Indeed, our field’s discussions of teaching—in the very journals mentioned by Spellmeyer—are not only what have helped define us, for better or worse, but are what should have positioned us perfectly to be an interdisciplinary exporter with, as James says, “much to offer . . . teachers and students throughout the academy.” In short, then, it is by no means only a testament to our own limitations, or to the potential interdisciplinary value of our work, that College English and College Composition and Communication do not circulate in other universes, but a testament to the perpetual devaluation of pedagogy itself.

Unfortunate, but a sensible point. And now what I want to say most vociferously: we can go back and forth about the nebulous notion of "impact," but I utterly disagree that we are just "consumers" of other disciplines and that the interdisciplinarity is just "one-way" (not that Kopelson is saying this). Do you think people in social studies of science, history of science, and philosophy of science don't read and cite Alan Gross and Jeanne Fahnestock? Do you think people in medical anthropology and women's studies don't read and cite Susan Wells and Mary Lay Schuster? And hello, Stanley Fish? Even my work has been cited in related fields. There are plenty of other examples.

Finally, I want to note the terms "rhetoric" and "composition," as well as several recent programs' alternative terms, such as "writing studies." Does "writing studies" succeed in reconciling the rhet-comp history, theory/professionalization, practice conflict?