Imitation As Resistance

Imitation as Resistance also offers American perspectives on the individual reputations of a number of British writers and their specific works, often down to the particular lines in plays and poems. The reader whose interest is limited, for example, to the singular reputation of a Dickens novel or a Byron poem may find the book functional for its broad bibliographical qualities. For cultural studies students, Americanists, and others, the book will demonstrate the complexity of cultural appropriation and the patterns of nineteenth-century American resistance and harmonization.

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

How did early Americans define themselves? The American exceptionalist perspective tells us that the young republic rejected Europeans, Native Americans, and African Americans in order to isolate a national culture and a white national identity. Imitativeness at this time was often seen as antithetical to self and national creation, but Jason Richards argues that imitation was in fact central to such creation. Imitation Nation shows how whites simultaneously imitated and therefore absorbed the cultures they so readily disavowed, as well as how Indians and blacks emulated the power and privilege of whiteness while they mocked and resisted white authority. By examining the republic’s foundational literature--including works by Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Herman Melville, and Martin Delany--Richards argues that the national desire for cultural uniqueness and racial purity was in constant conflict with the national need to imitate the racial and cultural other for self-definition. The book offers a new model for understanding the ways in which the nation’s identity and literature took shape during the early phases of the American republic.

All of Christendom has heard of the imitation of Christ. Few within Christendom have heard much of the imitation of Paul. Perhaps there is nothing extraordinary about such a state of affairs. After all, Christ fills a far more significant role in Christianity than the Apostle Paul does. And yet, when one looks at the matter purely statistically, it is striking to find that the thought of the imitation of Paul comes to literal expression in the New Testament five times, while the thought of the imitation of Christ is found literally expressed only twice. -From the Introduction

"At long last, a discussion of plagiarism that doesn't stop at 'Don't do it or else,' but does full justice to the intellectual interest of the topic!" ---Gerald Graff, author of Clueless in Academe and 2008 President, Modern Language Association This collection is a timely intervention in national debates about what constitutes original or plagiarized writing in the digital age. Somewhat ironically, the Internet makes it both easier to copy and easier to detect copying. The essays in this volume explore the complex issues of originality, imitation, and plagiarism, particularly as they concern students, scholars, professional writers, and readers, while also addressing a range of related issues, including copyright conventions and the ownership of original work, the appropriate dissemination of innovative ideas, and the authority and role of the writer/author. Throughout these essays, the contributors grapple with their desire to encourage and maintain free access to copyrighted material for noncommercial purposes while also respecting the reasonable desires of authors to maintain control over their own work. Both novice and experienced teachers of writing will learn from the contributors' practical suggestions about how to fashion unique assignments, teach about proper attribution, and increase students' involvement in their own writing. This is an anthology for anyone interested in how scholars and students can navigate the sea of intellectual information that characterizes the digital/information age. "Eisner and Vicinus have put together an impressive cast of contributors who cut through the war on plagiarism to examine key specificities that often get blurred by the rhetoric of slogans. It will be required reading not only for those concerned with plagiarism, but for the many more who think about what it means to be an author, a student, a scientist, or anyone who negotiates and renegotiates the meaning of originality and imitation in collaborative and information-intensive settings." ---Mario Biagioli, Professor of the History of Science, Harvard University, and coeditor of Scientific Authorship: Credit and Intellectual Property in Science "This is an important collection that addresses issues of great significance to teachers, to students, and to scholars across several disciplines. . . . These essays tackle their topics head-on in ways that are both accessible and provocative." ---Andrea Lunsford, Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor of English, Claude and Louise Rosenberg Jr. Fellow, and Director of the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stanford University and coauthor of Singular Texts/Plural Authors: Perspectives on Collaborative Writing digitalculturebooks is an imprint of the University of Michigan Press and the Scholarly Publishing Office of the University of Michigan Library dedicated to publishing innovative and accessible work exploring new media and their impact on society, culture, and scholarly communication. Visit the website at www.digitalculture.org.

Why has shame recently displaced guilt as a dominant emotional reference in the West? After the Holocaust, survivors often reported feeling guilty for living when so many others had died, and in the 1960s psychoanalysts and psychiatrists in the United States helped make survivor guilt a defining feature of the "survivor syndrome." Yet the idea of survivor guilt has always caused trouble, largely because it appears to imply that, by unconsciously identifying with the perpetrator, victims psychically collude with power. In From Guilt to Shame, Ruth Leys has written the first genealogical-critical study of the vicissitudes of the concept of survivor guilt and the momentous but largely unrecognized significance of guilt's replacement by shame. Ultimately, Leys challenges the theoretical and empirical validity of the shame theory proposed by figures such as Silvan Tomkins, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and Giorgio Agamben, demonstrating that while the notion of survivor guilt has depended on an intentionalist framework, shame theorists share a problematic commitment to interpreting the emotions, including shame, in antiintentionalist and materialist terms.

It was Plato who famously stated that 'imitation is dangerous because it stifles creativity, hampers the development of personal identity and disrupts the perception of other people as unique beings'. There are some who still feel this way, and perhaps this explains why imitation has received less attention within the developmental literature than other human characteristics. So why are humans able to imitate - from the very second they enter the world? Can it have positive effects? Can it help us interact with others better? Can it even make us feel better about ourselves and our ability to influence and interact with the world around us? In this book, a leading development psychologist explores the topic of imitation - looking at why we imitate and the possible benefits it might bring - in particular to those affected by Autism Spectrum Disorders. The book offers fascinating insights into an often neglected topic.

This book focuses on the influence of classical authors on Ben Jonson’s dramaturgy, with particular emphasis on the Greek and Roman playwrights and satirists. It illuminates the interdependence of the aspects of Jonson’s creative personality by considering how classical performance elements, including the Aristophanic ‘Great Idea,’ chorus, Terentian/Plautine performative strategies, and ‘performative’ elements from literary satire, manifest themselves in the structuring and staging of his plays. This fascinating exploration contributes to the ‘performative turn’ in early modern studies by reframing Jonson’s classicism as essential to his dramaturgy as well as his erudition. The book is also a case study for how the early modern education system’s emphasis on imitative-contaminative practices prepared its students, many of whom became professional playwrights, for writing for a theatre that had a similar emphasis on recycling and recombining performative tropes and structures.