Computers and Composition Special Issue

Deadline for manuscripts: September 15, 2009 (response by November 15)
Deadline for final manuscripts: January 15, 2010

I am co-editing an Intellectual Property-focused special issue of Computers and Composition with Danielle Nicole DeVoss, John Logie, and Steve Westbrook. I've pasted the call below and it can also be accessed as a pdf file here:

https://www.msu.edu/~courantm/CFP_CC_copyright.pdf

CALL FOR MANUSCRIPTS

special issue of Computers and Composition, volume 27 issue 3, September 2010
Copyright, Culture, Creativity, and the Commons

In 1998, Computers and Composition and Kairos both published special issues related to intellectual property. Much has changed in the 11 years since those special issues, including new legislation, proposed legislation, and the rise and fall of file-sharing spaces like Napster and Kazaa. Further, issues not addressed in the earlier special issue require the attention of computers and writing scholars, including global and international issues related to intellectual property, feminist and ecofeminist research in intellectual property, and issues of cultural cannibalism and intellectual commons. This special issue will attend to these—and other—issues, with a particular focus on the cultural consequences of our expanded sense of what counts as “property” in digital spaces.

Questions we invite authors to consider and respond to include, but are not limited to:

* Where are the significant intersections between intellectual property and computers and composition? What intersections have thus far remained invisible or buried?

* What significant changes have occurred in U.S. copyright law in the past 15 years? In international copyright law, policies, and approaches?

* What global, international, or cross-cultural intellectual property issues should we be attentive to?

* How might our understandings of “the commons,” the concept of shared or “community-owned knowledge,” and the notion of “cultural appropriation” contribute to conversations on copyright and/or intellectual property?

* What are some of the ways in which feminist/ecofeminist scholarship in intellectual property, and understandings of sustainability can inform or extend our approaches to intellectual property?

* What are some of the ways in which cultural rhetorics scholarship in intellectual property can inform or extend our approaches to intellectual property? For example, is there a connection between racism and the commodification of culture via intellectual property regimes? A connection with sexism? Where are the intersections between discourses of race and/or gender and intellectual property-related discourse?

* Are there better vocabularies, terms, and theories for us to drawn upon to situate and study “intellectual property?” Is it possible to recognize and/or attribute “intellectual property” in places other than formal legal regimes?

* How have intellectual property issues become more immediate with regard to the continual growth of and use for digital writing spaces? New media texts?

* In what ways can our long history of analyzing authorship and ownership of texts, including our discussions on issues of plagiarism and attribution, contribute to how we approach intellectual property issues? In what was does this long history perhaps submerge issues we
might be discussing?

* In what ways can writing instructors and researchers enter into public discussions about intellectual property?

The special issue will consist of: 1) a special issue editors’ introduction, which will provide some historical, legal, and philosophical context; 2) approximately 6–7 articles addressing issues of intellectual property, focusing on those issues that have arisen since the 1998 special issues; and 3) a roundtable-style-discussion piece capturing the interactions of key figures in intellectual property scholarship within and beyond computers and writing (e.g., Jim Porter, Ty Herrington, Jessica Reyman, Jessica Litman, Kembrew McLeod, Siva Vaidhyanathan, Rebecca Moore Howard, Vandana Shiva, Johndan Johnson-Eilola, and Peter Yu).


Deadline for manuscripts: September 15, 2009 (response by November 15) Deadline for final manuscripts: January 15, 2010


Please direct questions and email manuscripts to the special issue editors:

Martine Courant Rife
Lansing Community College

Steve Westbrook
California State University, Fullerton

Dànielle Nicole DeVoss
Michigan State University

John Logie
University of Minnesota