Research Catalog

Title

Copyright matters : imitation, creativity and authenticity in contemporary Chinese literature / Lena Henningsen.

Author

Henningsen, Lena

Publication

Berlin : BWV, Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, c2010.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

279 p.; 23 cm.

Summary

"In her first book, Lena Henningsen offers five studies that challenge the wide-spread prejudice among the Western Press that China is an empire of plagiarism, sometimes even referred to as the "People's Republic of Cheats". By analyzing the cases of convicted plagiarist Guo Jingming, the victim of plagiarism Han Han, the follow-up publications to Jiang Rong's Wolf's Totem, the Harry Potter fakes and fan fiction, as well as discussions of academic plagiarism, Henningsen proves that copyright increasingly matters to Chinese writers. Confronted with instances of copyright infringements on their own works, they voice their opposition and fight for their rights, be it through legal action or their writing. At the same time, the author demonstrates that a text that is commonly considered to be "plagiarized" or "imitated" may turn out to be a highly creative work in its own right, for example when Harry Potter appears as a timid exchange student in China. Therefore, Henningsen opts for a literary reading of these "derivative" works and argues that imitation may, at times, be a creative tool. While these two central arguments appear to be contradictory, the author shows that they represent two sides of the same coin: the emergence of a new self-conception among Chinese authors, as they struggle to recast their relationship with society and state."--Publisher's information.

Alternative Title

Imitation, creativity and authenticity in contemporary Chinese literature

Subject

• Copyright > China
• Publishers and publishing > China
• Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.)
• Plagiarism > China
• Authenticity (Philosophy) in literature
• Imitation in literature

Note

• Based on author's thesis (doctoral)--Universität Heidelberg, 2008.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 249-276) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Prologue: To steal, or not to steal, that is the question -- Introduction: Copyright in China and "the West" : textual appropriation or intertextuality? -- What is a plagiarist? : Guo Jingming, convicted plagiarist -- To steal a book might not be an elegant offense : Han Han, victim of plagiarism -- Dances with commercialism : innovation or imitation of the bestseller Wolf's Totem? -- The politics of fakery : Harry Potter between fake and fan fiction -- The work of academic writing in the age of digital reproduction : discussions of academic plagiarism on the Chinese Internet -- Copyright matters! Authenticity and authority in contemporary Chinese writing.

ISBN

• 3830517556 (Germany)
• 9789400000445 (Belgium)
• 9400000448 (Belgium)
• 9783708306667 (Austria)
• 370830666X (Austria)

OCLC

• 555632458
• SCSB-10141626

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library