What Matters Who Writes?
What Matters Who Responds?
Andrea Lunsford, Rebecca Rickly, Michael Salvo,
and Susan West
In this regard, it is especially interesting to me to note not just
who writes and who responds, but who owns, and, moreover, who does
not own. Certainly, traditional notions about ownership of
intellectual property have tended to value certain producers and
their works, usually textual, while erasing or devaluing others. No
right of ownership or copyright exists, for example, in a work
produced by a fully collective enterprise, nor can a work that is
not "fixed" in some way be copyrighted. As a result, certain
producers have large and protected
ownership rights--while others
have none at all. These "others" include, just for example,
traditional folkloric productions that are being increasingly
appropriated and commodified by the cultural and entertainment
industries of the west; they include the work of many women
involved in the craft movement--think of our grandmothers' quilting, for
instance--whose labors have been appropriated and are being sold in
mail-order catalogs and over television. But what--I am pretty sure
you are asking if you've had the generosity and patience to stick
with me this far--what on earth do these issues of ownership have
to do with our classrooms? with our work as writing teachers? with
our work as responders to student writing? I want to argue that we
and our classrooms should come in at every point in the discussion
and debates I have been chronicling. Because if we do not get in on
this discussion, we are going to be written and shaped by it--in
ways we may not like.
Next *
Previous
Postmodern (un)grounding *
Collaboration *
Copy(w)right/Ownership *
Possible Futures
Title Page *
Conclusions