Literary assemblage

Assemblage refers to a text "built primarily and explicitly from existing texts to solve a writing or communication problem in a new context". The concept was first proposed by Johndan Johnson-Eilola (author of Datacloud) and Stuart Selber in the journal Computers & Composition in 2007. The notion of assemblages builds on remix and remix practices, which blur distinctions between invented and borrowed work.

Johnson-Eilola and Selber write that assemblage is influenced by intertextuality and postmodernism. The authors discuss the intertextual nature of writing and assert that participation in existing discourse necessarily means that composition cannot occur separate from that discourse. They state that "productive participation involves appropriation and re-appropriation of the familiar" in a manner that conforms to existing discourse and audience expectations. In reference to intertextuality, Johnson-Eilola and Selber cite The Social Life of Information by John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid. In this book Brown and Duguid state that the meaning of and use for a text is directly influenced both by its source texts and the broader textual context in which it participates. Building upon this notion, Johnson-Eilola and Selber position assemblage as a style of composition situated within postmodernism. They state that "in a general sense, postmodern theories, and following them, cultural studies, offer a useful way of understanding assemblages (and the related process of remixing) as simultaneously social and textual structures." Johnson-Eilola and Selber suggest that texts should always be treated as assemblages since composition is often highly intertextual.

Johnson-Eilola and Selber believe that composition should be undertaken as a problem solving activity rather than a demonstration of original ideas. They write that "writing situations are, at base, problem-solving situations in one way or another," and offer assemblage as a form of problem solving that can be used alongside the creation of original text. Michael J. Michaud writes that "assemblages are ubiquitous in contemporary workplaces" where problem solving is paramount because assemblage allows authors to "meet discursive needs and to get work done." He further argues that students with workplace experience often transfer assemblage writing into the composition classroom. Assemblage allows such authors to alter existing texts and combine them with original work in order to meet the demands of a writing situation or problem.

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