Instructor: Craig Smith
Course Time: TR 1:00-2:47 PM
General Education: Literature
Term: Winter 2014

DESCRIPTION:

As T. S. Eliot wrote in The Sacred Wood, “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.” Literary tradition and cultural conversation emerge from the interaction of texts, an interaction that is sometimes acknowledged, sometimes not. Yet the notion of the imaginative writer who produces wholly original work, unconnected from what others have written, remains culturally current even in the age of the Internet, along with ever-intensifying anxieties regarding the shadow of plagiarism and literary fraud. This class will survey theories of intertextuality (the ways that texts intersect with one another), adaptation as a genre that crosses the boundaries of different media, and postmodern practices of artistic appropriation. Readings will include general theoretical surveys along with a classic model of intertextual reading and a contemporary experiment in intertextual criticism. There will be discussion of the changing definitions of literary creation and intellectual property, including attention to the history of plagiarism, constructed authorial identities, and literary hoaxes. The course will include viewing and discussion of three films that deal with these issues head-on. Writing assignments will include a major critical paper with a theoretical emphasis, a shorter experiment in literary adaptation, and low-risk in-class collaborative writing.

LIST OF PROPOSED TEXTS:

Books:
Graham Allen: Intertextuality
Roland Barthes: S/Z
Julie Sanders: Adaptation and Appropriation
Adam Thirlwell: The Delighted States

Additional brief readings to be provided online.

Films:
Michel Gondry, dir.: Be Kind Rewind
Spike Jonze, dir.: Adaptation
Michael Winterbottom, dir.: Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story