Textual Curators and Writing Machines: Authorial Agency in Encyclopedias, Print to Digital A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Krista A. Kennedy IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Dr. Laura J. Gurak and Dr. John Logie, Advisors July 2009 © Krista A. Kennedy, July 2009 Creative Commons License: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works Acknowledgments This project would not have been possible without the support and assistance of many people. My advisers, Laura Gurak and John Logie, welcomed me to the department and provided steady support throughout my studies. Their sound advice and quick response times were especially invaluable throughout the dissertation process. This research began in Dr. Logie’s Spring 2005 Authorship seminar during a spirited debate about the impact of technology on authorship constructs, and continued in Dr. Gurak’s seminar on Theory and Research in Internet Studies. Richard Graff’s always smart questions on aspects of rhetorical theory, his own research into material aspects of delivery, and his great attention to detail continue to push me. Michael Hancher pointed me toward the Chambers Cyclopædia and kept his door open to me as I first began to consider the ways it might be compared to Wikipedia. His expertise on book history and the eighteenth century, along with his kindness and unending curiosity, are lasting influences. The department’s Directors of Graduate Study, Art Walzer and Bernadette Longo, have been wonderful advocates. The Writing Studies staff is among the best I’ve known, and I especially thank Mary Wrobel and Shannon Klug for their patience and good humor. My graduate colleagues have provided invaluable support and advice, and also tolerated much talk of encyclopedias. Greg Schneider, the other member of the Twin Cities Dissertational Breakfast Society, has offered stalwart friendship and feedback. I also thank Paul Anheier, i Anthony Arrigo, Kenny Fountain, Brenda Hudson, Dave Kmiec, Zoe Nyssa, and Erin Wais-Hennen for mutual support as we all moved through seminars, exams, dissertating, and the job search. Chuck Anderson, Collin Brooke, Earnest Cox, Barbara L’Eplattenier, Rebecca Moore-Howard, Joanna O’Connell, Jessica Reyman, and Scott Rogers each appeared at opportune moments to offer advice and encouragement. Barbara Warnick and Michael Day offered kind and helpful responses to the portions of this study that have appeared in print. My parents have always been champions of the possible, and I am indebted for their many years of support and humor. My Twin Cities compatriots Charlotte Tschider and Francesca Davis Dipiazza provided wonderful conversations, food, and distraction. Jenny and Lisa Spadafora were a daily source of good cheer and comfort. Hundreds of writers, both known and unknown, contributed to the texts I have studied here. I am grateful that they found time and energy to devote to encyclopedia-building and creating publicly available resources. Ephraim Chambers took great care in his considerations of encyclopedia- making, and yet managed to include flashes of his own unique perspective and wit. Nearly three hundred years after the first edition, it is still a pleasure to study his books. My warmest thanks go to my husband, Jeff Ward. He has been my best friend and intellectual companion throughout my graduate studies, and I could not have completed this project without his patience and encouragement. ii For my departed elders, whose financial support made my education possible: Doris Oliver Jean and Merrill Breeze Bessie and Chester Ward iii Abstract Wikipedia is often discussed as the first of its kind: the first massively collaborative, Web-based encyclopedia that belongs to the public domain. While it’s true that wiki technology enables large-scale, distributed collaborations in revolutionary ways, the concept of a collaborative encyclopedia is not new, and neither is the idea that private ownership might not apply to such documents. More than 275 years ago, in the preface to the 1728 edition of his Cyclopædia, Ephraim Chambers mused on the intensely collaborative nature of the volumes he was about to publish. His thoughts were remarkably similar to contemporary intellectual property arguments for Wikipedia, and while the composition processes involved in producing these texts are influenced by the available technologies, they are also unexpectedly similar. This dissertation examines issues of authorial agency in these two texts and shows that the “Author Construct” is not static across eras, genres, or textual technologies. In contrast to traditional considerations of the poetic author, the encyclopedic author demonstrates a different form of authorial agency that operates within strict genre conventions and does not place a premium on originality. This and related variations challenge contemporary ideas concerning the divide between print and digital authorship as well as the notion that new media intellectual property arguments are without historical precedent. iv Table of Contents List of Tables ...........................................................................vii List of Figures .........................................................................viii Introduction .............................................................................1 Plan of the Work ......................................................................................4 Chapter 1: Encyclopedic Authorship in Context .......................8 Networked Precursors to Wikipedia .......................................................9 The Rise of Wikipedia ............................................................................15 The Encyclopedic Author in Contemporary Popular Media ................19 Chambers' Cyclopædia ..........................................................................29 Successors of the Cyclopædia ................................................................34 Conclusion .............................................................................................44 Chapter 2: Rhetorical Agency and Authorship ........................45 The Continental Critique of Authorship ...............................................47 The Rhetorical Situation .......................................................................53 Agency ...................................................................................................59 Authorship .............................................................................................73 Conclusion .............................................................................................81 Chapter 3: Methods ................................................................83 Rhetorical Criticism ..............................................................................85 Historical Comparison ..........................................................................87 Digital Texts ...........................................................................................89 Selection of Objects for Study ...............................................................93 v Conclusion ............................................................................................110 Chapter 4: Textual Curation ...................................................111 The Curator ...........................................................................................113 The Curator’s Craft ...............................................................................119 Descriptions of Curation in Chambers' 1728 Preface ..........................123 Descriptions of Curation in Wikipedia .................................................131 Examining Evidence: The Curatorial Process .....................................138 Conclusion ............................................................................................158 Chapter 5 : The Encyclopedic Reader as Author ....................161 Nonlinear Reading Paths ......................................................................163 Textual Contributions ...........................................................................164 Vandalism .............................................................................................171 Conclusion ............................................................................................189 Chapter 6: Bot-written Texts ..................................................193 Digital Affordances ...............................................................................194 Sentience, Emotion and Agency ..........................................................196 Bot-driven Tasks in Wikipedia ............................................................206 Bots at Work .........................................................................................211 Composers or Writers? ........................................................................223 Conclusion ............................................................................................226 Chapter 7: Situational Authorship ........................................228 Key Findings .........................................................................................231 Future Research Directions .................................................................240 Works Cited ...........................................................................245 vi List of Tables Table 1: Contributor report from the