Professor and Interim Dean, College of Arts and Letters
Year Started at JMU: 2000
Education
Ph.D., English, Case Western Reserve University, 2004
M.S.J., IP Law, Seton Hall Law, 2017
M.A., English, James Madison University, 1994
B.A., English, James Madison University, 1992
Professional Focuses
Authorship, intellectual property, fair use, copyright and the public domain, digital literacies, privacy and technology; language and the law.
Dr. Zimmerman conducts research on U.S. Intellectual Property Law, the understanding of “fair use,” and attitudes about open access. She is also interested in the “post-human” moment: what it means to be human in an increasingly networked and computer-mediated world particularly with regard to identity, empathy, accountability, memory and privacy.
Publications
"Invaluable, but Invisible: Conference Hosting as Vital but Undervalued Intellectual Labor." With Jennifer Almjeld. The Journal of Multimodal Rhetorics. Vol. 4; Issue 2. Special Issue: "Invisible Labor in the Academy." 2021. 31-41.
"And so two shall become one”: Being (and Becoming) The School of Writing, Rhetoric and Technical Communication." Weathering the Storm: Independent Writing Programs in the Age of Fiscal Austerity. Ed. Rich Matzen and Matthew Abraham. Utah State UP, 2019. 60-67.
“Review: ‘The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz (2014).’” The CCCC-IP Annual: Top Intellectual Property Developments of 2014. Ed. Clancy Ratliff. CCCC-IP, April 2015. 55-59. Web.
“‘Not a Category of Constitutional Significance’: Golan v. Holder and the Future of the Public Domain.” Cultures of Copyright. Eds. Martine Courant Rife and Danielle DeVoss. Peter Lang Publishing. 2014. 75-90. Print.
“Review: ‘The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz.’ In unCommon News – A Crowd-Powered Newsletter for a Writing-Centered Community. Published by Joe Moxley, Writing Commons. (November 2014 Issue). Web.
"Workplace Realities and Romantic Views of Authorship, or Why Intellectual Property Issues are Important to Current and Future Technical Communicators." With Pavel Zemliansky. Legal Issues in Global Contexts. Eds. Martine Courant-Rife and Kirk St. Amant. Amityville, NY: Baywood Press. 2014. 147-167. Print.
"The Future of Copyright? A Look at the First Decade of Creative Commons." The CCCC-IP Annual: Top Intellectual Property Developments of 2013. Ed. Clancy Ratliff. CCCC-IP, March 2014. 33-36. Web.
"One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: What Golan v. Holder Means for the Future of the Public Domain." The CCCC-IP Annual: Top Intellectual Property Developments of 2011. Ed. Clancy Ratliff. CCCC-IP, March 2012. 15-17. Web.
"Another (short) tale of Open Access: The HathiTrust Case." NCTE Inbox. January 19, 2012. Web.
"Directions on the Road to Copyright Reform?: An Overview of the Copyright Principles Project." The CCCC-IP Annual: Top Intellectual Property Developments of 2010. Ed. Clancy Ratliff. CCCC-IP, April 2011. 12-17. Web.
"'Hacktivist' or Thief?: What the Aaron Swartz Case Means to the Open Access.Movement." NCTE Inbox. October 18, 2011. Web.
"Think Locally, Act Globally: Taking US Copyright Reform to a World Stage." NCTE Inbox. December 14, 2010. Web.
"The Times, They are Remixin": Indaba Music, Creative Commons, and the Digital Collaboration Frontier. NCTE Inbox. April 16, 2010. Web.
"Authors, Audiences, and the Gap(s) Between." Engaging Audience: Writing in an Age of New Literacies. Eds. Brian Fehler, Elizabeth Weiser, and Angela Gonzalez. Urbana, IL: NCTE Press, 2009. 73-88. Print.
"'What's Fair is Foul': Understanding Fair Use in the Classroom." NCTE Inbox. July 28 2009. Web.
"'It’s a Hard Knock Life': The Plight of Orphan Works and the Possibility of Reform." The CCCC-IP Annual: Top Intellectual Property Developments of 2008. Ed. Clancy Ratliff. CCCC-IP, March 2008. 24-27. Web.
"McLean Students File Suit Against Turnitin.com: Useful Tool or Instrument of Tyranny?" The CCCC-IP Annual: Top Intellectual Property Developments of 2007. Ed. Clancy Ratliff. CCCC-IP, March 2007. 2-12. Web.
"Numbed Suburban Lifestyles Versus Gluttonous Self-Love: Woody Allen, Marriage, and Divorce." After Intimacy: The Culture of Divorce in the West Since 1789. Eds. Karl Leydecker and Nicholas White. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang International Academic Publishers, 2007: 235-256. Print.
"Walking the Fine Line: Balancing Assessment Politics with Writing Pedagogy." With Jim Zimmerman. Research Writing Revisited: A Sourcebook for Teachers. Eds. Wendy Bishop and Pavel Zemliansky. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Heinemann Press, 2004: 215-226. Print.
