Free eBooks Uncreative Writing: Managing Language In The Digital Age Available To Downloads
Can techniques traditionally thought to be outside the scope of literature, including word processing, databasing, identity ciphering, and intensive programming, inspire the reinvention of writing? The Internet and the digital environment present writers with new challenges and opportunities to reconceive creativity, authorship, and their relationship to language. Confronted with an unprecedented amount of texts and language, writers have the opportunity to move beyond the creation of new texts and manage, parse, appropriate, and reconstruct those that already exist. In addition to explaining his concept of uncreative writing, which is also the name of his popular course at the University of Pennsylvania, Goldsmith reads the work of writers who have taken up this challenge. Examining a wide range of texts and techniques, including the use of Google searches to create poetry, the appropriation of courtroom testimony, and the possibility of robo-poetics, Goldsmith joins this recent work to practices that date back to the early twentieth century. Writers and artists such as Walter Benjamin, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, and Andy Warhol embodied an ethos in which the construction or conception of a text was just as important as the resultant text itself. By extending this tradition into the digital realm, uncreative writing offers new ways of thinking about identity and the making of meaning.
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Columbia University Press (September 20, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0231149913
ISBN-13: 978-0231149914
Product Dimensions: 0.5 x 5.5 x 8.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #253,756 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #19 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Movements & Periods > Modernism #119 in Books > Textbooks > Humanities > Literature > Literary Theory #281 in Books > Textbooks > Communication & Journalism > Media Studies
Declaring something uncreative writing and rehashing post-structuralist critiques of authorship does little to obscure his belated, retro perspective. The problems he sees as relevant to writing are the same problems Duchamp worked through nearly a century ago. The author's implicit claims deserve the same respect one might give to someone suddenly discovering surrealism for the first time in the twenty-first century, except surrealism is actually a more recent phenomenon than conceptualism.
One of the most important books written on the future (and perhaps recent past) of contemporary writing -- prophetic look on how technology is shaping writing and consciousness. Far reaching -- with tie ins to contemporary art. A must read for the new Post-Moderns;
Exciting book, fun read, but not very persuasive. Makes you realize in a backwards way that art isn't just for the mind, but also the soul (that magical concept). A short poem like "Of Mere Being" is far more satisfying in every way than Warhol's whole oeuvre (much as I admire it) and most every work cited in this book.Nevertheless, UNCREATIVE WRITING is definitely worth reading
The book describes current cultural trends that are not reflected too often. Thinking about writing in the age of electronic communication and internet is frequent today but insight into how writing really changes is rather new. The changes are considered not only from such kinds of points of view as you have access to information, you can manipulate texts, but the author offers insight into rather deep changes in writing.Sometimes, I did not aggree with the author's view that originality is out of date. Still he offers serious arguments for necessitiy to reconsider Kant's romantic notion of genius.Sometimes, the author uses journalistic jargon remaining on the rather superficial description of current cultural trends. Nevertheless, his ideas are challenging and he provokes new ways of thinking about reality that is all around us.
Kenneth Goldsmith's Uncreative Writing is a new/another way to think about digital writing, issues of plagiarism, and what he refers to as something comparable in writing (the pc and the internet) to what painting had to face to redefine itself in the wake of photography.One of the things that makes this book so pleasurable to read is the joy with which Goldsmith lays out the climate in writing today, the possibilities inherent in this kind of "uncreative writing," and the various ways that others,including artists, writers, and even his own students, have taken up this style of writing in their own ways.This book makes me happy, too, in the same way that look at a painting by Yves Tanguy or a sculpture by Max Ernst makes me happy. And I have to admit that even though I don't always think of such things on my own, I really admire the kinds of trangressive writing acts described in the book, as well as his very good defense of such mundane activities as retyping the NYT every day for a year. Then again, since it is called uncreative writing, maybe I shouldn't beat myself up for not being able to come up with the kind of "uncreative" genres and assignments the he speaks of. Still, I am obviously not an "uncreative genius." But I can still admire this book and borrow/steal ideas which he has crystallized, if not created himself.There are also some really great pedagogical ideas in there that will make students rethink the physical act of writing, acts of transcribing, the nature of research and of documenting sources, alongside questions of appropriation, pastiche, sampling, etc. that we are still dealing with, 100 years after the Urinal. I think this is a good book for any writing instructor, not just for creative/uncreative writing.
Kenneth Goldsmith is one of the most thought provoking poets and word artists out there. A brilliant thinker and trouble maker. He is exactly what a good artist should be doing: mess with your status quo. A great read for any creative person, regardless of your field. Inspiring, smart and witty.
Uncreative Writing: Managing Language in the Digital Age Body Language: Body Language Training - Attract Women & Command Respect, by Mastering Your High Status Body Language (Body Language Attraction, Body Language ... Language Secrets, Nonverbal Communication) Writing : Novel Writing Mastery, Proven And Simple Techniques To Outline-, Structure- And Write A Successful Novel ! - novel writing, writing fiction, writing skills - Youdunit Whodunit!: How To Write Mystery, Thriller and Suspense Books (Writing Skills, Writing Fiction, Writing Instruction, Writing a Book) BODY LANGUAGE : Decoding Alpha Male Body Language, Instantly Attract Any Woman Without Saying a Single word. (Body Language 101, Alpha male, Attract woman, ... Seduce Women, Eye Contact, Body Language) Measuring the Digital World: Using Digital Analytics to Drive Better Digital Experiences (FT Press Analytics) Fotografia Submarina / Underwater Photography: Tecnicas Fotograficas / Digital and Traditional Techniques (Ocio Digital / Leisure Digital) (Spanish Edition) Disruptive Power: The Crisis of the State in the Digital Age (Oxford Studies in Digital Politics) The New Age of Sex Education:: How to Talk to Your Teen About Cybersex and Pornography in the Digital Age How to Make an Action Movie for $99: A guide to writing, shooting and editing a feature film in the digital age Managing Research, Development and Innovation: Managing the Unmanageable Managing Contraception 2016, Limited Edition (Ziemen, Managing Contraception for your Pocket) Handbook of Research on Foreign Language Education in the Digital Age (Advances in Educational Technologies and Instructional Design) Digital Paper: A Manual for Research and Writing with Library and Internet Materials (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing) Non Fiction Writing Templates: 44 Tips to Create Your Own Non Fiction Book (Writing Templates, Writing Non Fiction, Kindle Publishing) Fiction Writing Templates: 30 Tips to Create Your Own Fiction Book (Writing Templates, Fiction Writing, Kindle Publishing) Love Writing - How to Make Money Writing Romantic or Erotic Fiction (Secrets to Success Writing Series Book 5) Common Core Language Arts Workouts, Grade 6: Reading, Writing, Speaking, Listening, and Language Skills Practice On Language: Chomsky's Classic Works Language and Responsibility and Reflections on Language in One Volume German: Learn German with These 500 Phrases (German Language, Speak German, Learning German, Germany Language, Austria Language, Learning German, Speaking German)
