CWRU Law School Faculty Authors

What is an author? What is a text? At a time when the definition of "text" is expanding and the technology whereby texts are produced and disseminated is changing at an explosive rate, the ways "authorship" is defined and rights conferred upon authors must also be reconsidered. This volume argues that contemporary copyright law, rooted as it is in a nineteenth-century Romantic understanding of the author as a solitary creative genius, may be inapposite to the realities of cultural production. Drawing together distinguished scholars from literature, law, and the social sciences, the volume explores the social and cultural construction of authorship as a step toward redefining notions of authorship and copyright for today's world. These essays, illustrating cultural studies in action, are aggressively interdisciplinary and wide-ranging in topic and approach. Questions of collective and collaborative authorship in both contemporary and early modern contexts are addressed. Other topics include moral theory and authorship; copyright and the balance between competing interests of authors and the public; problems of international copyright; musical sampling and its impact on "fair use" doctrine; cinematic authorship; quotation and libel; alternative views of authorship as exemplified by nineteenth-century women's clubs and by the Renaissance commonplace book; authorship in relation to broadcast media and to the teaching of writing; and the material dimension of authorship as demonstrated by Milton's publishing contract. Contributors. Rosemary J. Coombe, Margreta de Grazia, Marvin D'Lugo, John Feather, N. N. Feltes, Ann Ruggles Gere, Peter Jaszi, Gerhard Joseph, Peter Lindenbaum, Andrea A. Lunsford and Lisa Ede, Jeffrey A. Masten, Thomas Pfau, Monroe E. Price and Malla Pollack, Mark Rose, Marlon B. Ross, David Sanjek, Thomas Streeter, Jim Swan, Max W. Thomas, Martha Woodmansee, Alfred C. Yen

In a period characterized by expanding markets, national consolidation, and social upheaval, print culture picked up momentum as the nineteenth century turned into the twentieth. Books, magazines, and newspapers were produced more quickly and more cheaply, reaching ever-increasing numbers of readers. Volume 4 of A History of the Book in America traces the complex, even contradictory consequences of these changes in the production, circulation, and use of print.

The concept of culture is troublingly vague and, at the same time, hotly contested, and law's relations to culture are as complex, varied and disputed as the concept of culture itself. The concept of the traditional, unified, reified, civilizing idea of culture has come under attack. The growth of cultural studies has played an important role in redefining culture by including popular culture and questions of social stratification, power and social conflict. Law and legal studies are relative latecomers to cultural studies. As scholars have come to see law as not something apart from culture and society, they have begun to explore the connections between law and culture. Focusing on the production, interpretation, consumption and circulation of legal meaning, these scholars suggest that law is inseparable from the interests, goals and understandings that deeply shape or compromise social life. Against this background, Law in the Domains of Culture brings the insights and approaches of cultural studies to law and tries to secure for law a place in cultural analysis. This book provides a sampling of significant theoretical issues in the cultural analysis of law and illustrates some of those issues in provocative examples of the genre. Law in the Domains of Culture is designed to encourage the still tentative efforts to forge a new interdisciplinary synthesis, cultural studies of law. The contributors are Carol Clover, Rosemary Coombe, Marjorie Garber, Thomas R. Kearns, William Miller, Andrew Ross, Austin Sarat, and Martha Woodmansee. Austin Sarat is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College. Thomas R. Kearns is William H. Hastie Professor of Philosophy, Amherst College.

"The burgeoning interdisciplinary interest in 'intellectual' property has expanded beyond the conventional categories of patent, copyright, and trademark to encompass a diverse array of topics ranging from traditional knowledge to international trade. Though recognition of the central role played by knowledge economies has increased, there is a special urgency associated with present-day inquiries into where rights to information come from, how they are justified, and the ways in which they are deployed. [This book] presents a range of divers--and even conflicting--contemporary perspectives on intellectual property rights and the contested sources of authority associated with them. Examining fundamentatl concepts and challenging conventional narratives--including those centered on authorship, invention, and the public domain--this book provides a rich introduction to an important intersection of law, culture, and material production"-- Page [4] of cover

Analyzing the rise of art in the 18th century, this treatise demonstrates how painting, sculpture and literature were not regarded as valuable art forms before the emergence of a new bourgeois culture. The author reveals how Romantic poets and philosophers invented art as we know it today.

"The burgeoning interdisciplinary interest in 'intellectual' property has expanded beyond the conventional categories of patent, copyright, and trademark to encompass a diverse array of topics ranging from traditional knowledge to international trade. Though recognition of the central role played by knowledge economies has increased, there is a special urgency associated with present-day inquiries into where rights to information come from, how they are justified, and the ways in which they are deployed. [This book] presents a range of divers--and even conflicting--contemporary perspectives on intellectual property rights and the contested sources of authority associated with them. Examining fundamentatl concepts and challenging conventional narratives--including those centered on authorship, invention, and the public domain--this book provides a rich introduction to an important intersection of law, culture, and material production"-- Page [4] of cover

This collection brings together twenty-seven essays by influential literary and cultural historians, as well as representatives of the vanguard of postmodernist economics. Contributors include: Jean-Joseph Goux, Marc Shell. This is a pathbreaking work which develops a new form of economic analysis. It will appeal to economists and literary theorists with an interest beyond the narrower confines of their subject.