"Cultural Materialist Critique and Digital Scholarship" 1

Computers & Writing Conference Presentation Ryan Trauman 2

1. Introduction Citation as Material and Social Practice editing work on The New Work of Composing –born-digital scholarship citability? Subtopic 3

2. Texts and scholarship are changing Hypertext/Websites dynamic sites user-generated content N. Katherine Hayles. How We Became Posthuman - Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago: U of Chicago P, –"flickering signifiers, characterized by their tendency toward unexpected metamorphoses, attenuations, and dispersions" (Hayles 29-30). Matthew G. Kirschenbaum. Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, –"the ontology of digital phenomena" (4) –"In what...does the materiality of electronic texts consist?" (9). 4

2. Texts and scholarship are changing (2) Christing L. Borgman. Scholarship in the Digital Age: Information, Infrastructure, and the Internet. The MIT Press, –"This is a critical juncture of scholarly information infrastructure. The technology has advanced much more quickly than has our understanding of its present and potential uses.... Design decisions made today will determine whether the Internet of tomorrow enables imaginative new forms of scholarship and learning" (3) –"Building a technical framework for scholarship is much easier than understanding what to build, for whom, for what purposes, and how their usage of the technologies will evolve over time." (3) 5

2. Texts and scholarship are changing (3) Cheryl Ball - Show, Not Tell CELJ - "Best Practices for Online Journal Editors" 6

6. How do scholarly digital texts cite other texts? citation/bibliography –Susan H. Delagrange. "Wunderkammer, Cornell, and the Visual Canon of Arrangement." Kairos, 13.2, Spring 2009 Urls and links embedded –Sean Zdenek. "Accessible podcasting: College students on the margins in the new media classroom." Computers and Composition Online. Fall

8. Functional notions of traditional citation practices (aka interface designs) Interface elements –citation –quotation, paraphrase, summary, stills –bibliography –page # scholarly work –citation connects texts rhetorically maps to a static text –quotation, paraphrase, summary, stills conjures immediate reproduction reduces the need to physically locate source material –bibliography embeds a text within a discourse –page # delineates scope and location of source material 8

8. Functional notions of traditional citation practices (aka interface designs) (2) data storage/proximity –citation one text stored outside another text points away from text toward others –quotation, paraphrase, summary, stills stores one (partial) text within another –bibliography embeds a discourse within a text –page # delineates scope and location of source material 9

13. In what specific ways do scholarly digital texts complicate citation practices? PDF –Sean Zdenek. "Accessible podcasting: College students on the margins in the new media classroom." Computers and Composition Online. Fall 2009 Flash Text –Susan H. Delagrange. "Wunderkammer, Cornell, and the Visual Canon of Arrangement." Kairos, 13.2, Spring 2009 YouTube –theamishaugur. "English Downfall." Kairos, 13.2, Spring Flash Movie –Bonnie Kyburz. "Bones." Kairos, 13.2, Spring

16. What are our best current options for citing digital texts? alphabetic citation –of alphabetic texts –of movies –of flash texts –of Web sites –of still images Still images –screen capture –embedded images moving images –video screen capture 11

16. What are our best current options for citing digital texts? (2) audio –audio capture –download files 12

17. What might we do as producers and editors of digital texts to better facilitate certain types of citation? Portable citation assets. –movies Digital Mirrors: Multimodal Reflection in the Composition Classroom –Project Files Flash texts Sophie books 13

19. Concerns for continued exploration copyright and circulation –licensing options –trackability statistics burden on producers/editors/hosts/presses –increase in scope of what consititutes a "text" –server space, traffic, maintenance, archives proprietary software (politics) –politics –economics software versioning –avoiding obsolescence 14