The Eroticism Of Paper

The Eroticism of Paper: (how) can we imagine Humanities scholarship beyond the printed text? Cornelius Puschmann University of Düsseldorf [email_address] 7 May 2009

Scholarly publishing in 2009

The economics of scholarly communication in 2009
in 2004 top twelve publishing corporations had combined annual sales of ~$65 billion and employed roughly 250,000 people (Peters 2009)
universities spend between 05. percent and 1.00 percent of their budgets on journals subscriptions (Phillips, 2009)
academic journals have been the fastest growing media sub–sector of the past 15 years (Morgan Stanley, 2002)
the number of scholarly journals increased from 39,565 in 2003 to 61,620 in 2008
approximately 5.7 million people work in research and development worldwide, publishing on average one article per year, and reading 97 articles per year.

Challenges in the Humanities: economics Even as they face growing economic problems, university presses are receiving ever more submissions as a result of increased expectations for promotion and tenure in our disciplines and at our institutions of higher learning [..] Academics who think of a monograph as a particularly musty, narrowly focused tome [..] need to realize that for the scholarly press director today, monograph also describes virtually every book written by junior professors in the humanities seeking tenure [..] The term [..] applies to any book lacking in crossover sales potential . MLA Report: The Future of Scholarly Publishing, 2002

Challenges in the Humanities: access It is attractive to see these problems rooted in economics, and even more attractive to see the electronic world as an easy solution[..] However, the root problem is the centuries-old academic publishing model that insists upon restricted access to scholarship . This model requires scholarship to be a commodity within a market whose economics are based upon selling access [..] But in the electronic age [..] knowledge does not have to be sold . In fact, it shouldn't be. It's value increases with access and use , and the restricted-access paradigm is keeping Humanities scholarship quarantined. Burton, 2008

A (simplistic) comparison of different areas of scholarship Natural Sciences Humanities raison d'être “ discovery” “ reflection” signature method empiricism hermeneutics publishing: typical form journal article monograph publishing: critical aspect speed length & breadth publishing: prestige criterion ranking/IPF press/series name

Arguments for Open Access/digital publishing Natural Sciences:
faster
cheaper, because monopoly corporate publishers are sidestepped
Humanities:
more accessible
cheaper, because marketing, printing, packaging, shipping costs can be avoided
Both:
new modes scholarly discourse are possible
but : changes in the Natural Sciences are largely pragmatic, in Humanities more fundamental and philosophical

Digitization of research and publishing not uncontroversial in the Humanities
growing number of 'Digital Humanities' initiatives, especially in the English-speaking world (Project Bamboo, DARIAH, TextGRID, ...)
support and interest from funding agencies and foundations (NEH, Mellon Foundation, DANS, DFG, ...)
but also skepticism: Heidelberg Appeal, conflation of legal issues (author rights), digitization, Open Access etc regarded as threats

Characterizing the problem
writing and publishing are not merely the distribution of research findings in the Humanities, but central methodological components of reflexive study
a change in the medium we write and publish in will naturally bring about change in Humanities scholarship in general

Challenges of digital scholarly communication

Where do we go from here?

Paper-based and digital information Paper
bound to objects
permanent/immutable
author-controlled
non-(real-time)-communicative
better suited for monodirectional distribution, archival and storage of information than communication -> stability
Digital
incorporeal
mutable
not fully controllable
potentially communicative
suited well for communication, but mutability makes 'archival' potentially problematic -> versatility

Consequences
As a result of its potential for communication , digital information
anticipates feedback
presupposes context/situational frame
is less concerned with permanence
tends to rely on interlinked sources
is personalized rather than objectified

What is a piece of academic writing (monograph, article) from a communicative and informational perspective?
planned, uninterrupted speech
depersonalized, frequently objectified
cohesively/logically/argumentatively (but usually not chronologically) structured
tries to be minimally context-dependent
“informational speech act” -> commitment to be accurate, inclusive, discursive

There is no reason why we can't have both, but digitality poses cognitive and cultural challenges
digital genres are idiosyncratic , i.e they reflect the author's subjective and flexible interpretation of the genre's function and status (Is a blog “serious” publishing? Are individual posts in it, but not others?) [before, this was determined by the cultural context and object]
situational instability, mutability, loss of author control and dependence on other sources all translate into a loss of authority
the impact of this loss is felt most strongly in the Humanities because they lack a reproducible and objectifiable fundament

Observations and predictions
scholarly information can no longer be identified with the objects used to transmit it
more horizontal (vs. vertical) reading and writing
scholarship likely to become more person-centric
...and conceptually (more) oral
… and a pastiche of genres and forms
authority and trust must be established in different ways
attribution, authorship
new, more holistic forms of peer review and evaluation
collaboration!

Thanks for listening!

The Eroticism Of Paper

by Cornelius Puschmann on May 07, 2009

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