Abstract
This essay engages in a reading of Tina Darragh’s publication Opposable Dumbs (2010). This reading is carried out in pursuit of a number of critical and theoretical questions, that include asking what sort of text this is, and how we might read it. The essay considers how Darragh’s work connects to the debate around open source and free software, and to the politics and poetics of that debate. Taking up the call for creative responses in Darragh’s anti-rights or inverted copyright statement, the writing takes a route through the text that parallels some of Darragh’s strategies as a writer. This creative reading is linked to a reading of Stephen Voyce’s essay on open source poetics (2011), with some reference to a wider discourse around FLOSS, creative commons, and copyleft strategies. This essay proposes Darragh’s work as a case study for Voyce’s proposals, and suggests that her practice may in fact go further than he proposes in moving from a position of ‘open source’ to one of ‘open content.’
DOI
10.16995/c21.4
Publication Date
2016-04-18
Publication Title
C21 Literature: Journal of 21st-Century Writings
Volume
4
Issue
1
Publisher
Open Library of the Humanities
ISSN
2045-5224
Embargo Period
2024-11-19
Recommended Citation
Leahy, M. (2016) 'Apologies for Blanks or Laments for Dumbness: Tina Darragh’s Opposable Dumbs as Open Source and/or Open Content', C21 Literature: Journal of 21st-Century Writings, 4(1). Open Library of the Humanities: Available at: https://doi.org/10.16995/c21.4
