Final Thoughts on the Rice Piece: DJ's and Writing, 2nd of two posts

I've finished reading the Rice piece now. There are a few points I'd like to bring up.

"To cry theft is to refuse to recognize the mix's role in new media based expression and how that role may destabilize rhetorical and pedagogical expectations" (Rice, 68). I am puzzled at his defense of plagiarism, almost a dismissive attitude toward it. Rice seems to want to identify writing and "the mix" as the same thing. It is not. Yes, the DJ can be a writer, no doubt. He may write his mixes, and the introduction of the Mellotron made it possible for musicians to sample all kinds of previous sounds and songs and borrow them for a new composition. But, note: that is music. When Public Enemy samples something from Frank Sinatra, there is a built in acknowledgment that it is borrowed and is being mixed into a new song by Public Enemy. No one is thinking that Public Enemey is trying to pretend that the Sinatra part is theirs! But in writing, when a student borrows ideas for a history research paper and does not acknowledge the source and passes the information off as his own, that's different. In this case, the writer, knowingly or not, is placing his or her credit on that information.

"The appropriation-motivated mix is not recognized as human nature in the average writing course because the emphasis is often on salvaging an assumed authorial authenticity; students are asked to maintain singular identities distinct from their writing" (69). Is there something wrong with salvaging an authenticity? If we mix to the point of the loss of authorial authenticity, do we risk turning individual authorship into a colorless, homogenous, formless stew of language and image without anything authentic left--no singular mark of identity? Furthermore, I contest the idea that mixing is anything new. The technology to mix in the writing medium is greater and more exciting than ever, but it has always been done, and it has always been done in every medium. Religion may be one of the first sources, what with all the prophets and such playing with our notions of time, predicting the future, and the future when it comes referencing the past, the writers of scripture mixing songs and poems and narratives and history and science all into one! Imagine. Now, mixing is more dramatic, more obvious, and maybe potentially more entertaining than ever, and we should embrace the concept. But again, mixing has always been done, sampling has always been a part of writing; what is new is the technology to provide hyper mixing.

Rice's excitement about alter egos in the hip hop world seems to overlook the fact that each and every time we write, we write with a different identity. Okay, when my students turn in their work, they sign their names, usually, to it. But, in the range of discouse, a student who writes an analytical paper on the Great Gatsby and then the next day pens a spoken word poem for his spoken word open mic night is most definitely mixing in different identities, whether he or she stills goes by the same name or not. What's in a name? What we are aware of as writing teachers are the different voices, the different discourses.

What do I agree with in this article? I agree that mixing is a good thing in writing. I agree that the powers that be often appropriate the cool as a means of maintaining control or equally as a means to actually make socially responsible progress--depending on the motive. I agree that "using appropriation within the rhetoric of cool allows writers to write outside of the limitations of student writing" that allow them to further enjoy other forms of writing. I agree wioth much in principle. But, I find the article narrow, dismissive of core writing, dismissive of the process of mixing that is a form of thinking that is now massively stimulated by technology but that has always been a part of creativity. I also believe in coherence and clarity, which may come in many forms, including incoherence and unclarity in a Zenish way--if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it won't.