American Lit: What's your thought?

Reading this book I had great difficulty in the beginning and still because of the deep content and many references to information I have no idea about. However, between the technical terms, complex ideas, and references to scientist and programmers Hayles creates and explains our connection to technology. While this information was useful I think the most meaningful information I got out of this text was the section regarding the ideas of ownership, controlling ideas, and originality in the literary world.

 On Beth Anne’s blog I comment, along with the rest of my class, on the idea of ownership as writers. Is the writer the owner? Is it the publishing company? These were some of the ideas we discussed regarding ownership. We also tackled the thought of owning ideas

 Before reading this book I believed the idea of ownership was pretty straightforward. You write something and it becomes yours. However Hayles introduces the idea of how we write explaining we appropriate and transform ideas. This led me to make a connection to remixing, which is popular and pretty common today. I’ve learned about remixing and some of the opinions behind, and the biggest debate is whether remixed information can be considered original. Looking on the net I found an article called Concept of originality, which looked at remixing and other forms of transforming and spoofing work.

Before Hayles I was unsure of how original remixing was, but after considering Hayles point of creators appropriating and transforming information to write my view changed. It’s often said originality is non-existent, and reading Hayles I agree and disagree. While it is easy to trace and find connections in a story to another it does not make a piece any less original. Originality lies in the transformation and presentation of the information collected.