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I’ve had lots of positive response, and a couple of really perceptive responses to the idea of “modulations,” both of which confirm my own understandings. At the heart of my question “What does it mean to remix scholarship?” is an implicit critique of the “textualist” answer, perhaps, that is, the idea that remixing a text is about cutting and pasting it into a new context. But when scholars write an article it has, or is supposed to have, a coherence that is not at the level of the text itself–but at the level of concepts and arguments. Simply plucking paragraphs out and re-arranging them might work when you are doing Kathy Acker-style plagiarism (where the effect depends in part on the recognizability of those passages) or Burroghs-Gysin style cut-ups (where it is actually a compositional technique, not a remix), or writing a group report or a grant proposal with a team of 5 or more people (where it is actually a form of collaborative re-writing). However, Read the rest of this… »

As part of the publication process of my book, Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software, I have discussed with Duke University Press ideas of “modulating” the book. “Modulations” are a key part of the book, in which I explore how the practices of Free Software have been used as templates and taken up in areas close to and far from Free Software. Such practices are “good to think with” in classic anthropological terms, meaning that they allow people to rethink their practices and habits using an exemplary and easily available set of ideas and tools. As such Free Software practices have spread to science (open access) to education (open educational resources), to music, film and culture (Creative Commons) and so on.

Because I’ve thought a lot about Free Software and its relation to science, I’ve naturally wondered: What does “scholarly” remix look like? Read the rest of this… »