PULLMAN, Wash. How much do we own the information we produce? How is it that Google and Facebook, and science and medicine, use information and property that some might presume is private? The idea of intellectual property will be considered in light of the Washington State University common reading book in a free, public presentation by Assistant Professor of English Mike Edwards. “Who Owns Your Information” will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 9, in Todd 130.
This year’s common reading book, used in first-year classes of WSU freshmen, is Rebecca Skloot’s “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.” Skloot describes how cervical cancer cells were taken from Lacks for scientific research without her knowledge prior to her death at 31 in 1951. The cells proved to be prolific multipliers and have been used in any number of scientific and medical applications, including creation of the polio vaccine. Published in 2010, Skloot’s book also covers the lives of Lacks’ five children.
The book raises issues about racism, scientific ethics, poverty and cancer, among others. The book itself, some WSU guest speakers at Common Reading Tuesdays events have noted, is an example of the way information about a person and family can carry economic value.
Neither Lacks nor her family received economic benefit from use of her cells. Edwards will consider many facets of “intellectual property” and of those who own and use it.
Edwards is senior chair of the national Intellectual Property Caucus of the Conference on College Composition and Communication. His research interests focus on intellectual property concerns, the economics of writing in a digital age and the rhetoric of technology.
He earned his Ph.D. in rhetoric and composition from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and his M.F.A. in English from the University of Pittsburgh. Before coming to WSU, he was an assistant professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He deployed to Afghanistan in 2011 as part of a mentor team tasked with helping the Afghans rebuild their system of higher education.
Common reading is a program in the University College at WSU. For more information and upcoming events and speakers, visit http://commonreading.wsu.edu.
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