Someone once said that bad poets borrow and good poets steal, thus suggesting that acts of theft, as well as their subsequent cover-ups, may lie behind some of the best and seemingly most original works of art in history. And it's not just the poets. More recently, an exhibition of artworks that employ copyrighted material, called "Illegal Art," has directly challenged current U.S. copyright law. Given the ubiquity of visual, electronic, and audio sampling in contemporary art, one might wonder if anyone even bothers to create alibis for today's artistic thefts. This course will investigate ideas about artistic and intellectual influence, inspiration, borrowing, revision, appropriation, and outright stealing. We'll ask a series of questions as we look at a variety of material, mostly literary, but also visual and musical, that troubles ideas about novel and derivative art. What's so original about original art? Where does influence stop and plagiarism begin? What must be forgotten, or remembered, about earlier works of art for a new one to appear to be just that-new? What becomes of our image of the artist as a lone figure of genius in works that make ample use of others' material? The course will consider these questions in part by reading various theories of originality and imitation, as well as recent re-workings of older literary texts, such as a contemporary re-writing of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray by novelist Will Self (in a book sub-titled "An Imitation"). We'll listen to music that relies heavily on the sampling of other works, as well as look at collage art in various forms. In addition we will read new considerations of copyright law by legal scholars to gain some sense of originality's shifting legal status. Throughout, we'll refine our sense of the relations among fiction, art, originality, and imitation by studying some of the best acts of artistic and intellectual theft of the recent past. Possible authors and works to be studied include Wordsworth and Coleridge, Oscar Wilde, Sigmund Freud, Vladimir Nabokov, Andy Warhol, Will Self, and essays on copyright law. Format: discussion/seminar. Requirements: 20 pages. of writing in the form of frequent short papers, active class participation, and the possibility of a final creative project. No prerequisites. Enrollment limit: 19 (expected: 19). Preference to first year students.

Hour: MCWEENY