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Statement on "Fair Use" of copyright materials in this work. Quiz: Name that Famous Plagiarist
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| The Death of the Author! D’oh! —What is an Author ? French theorists and other deconstructionists have tried to undermine the very idea of an Author, such assertions having been used in recent years to underpin arguments which suggest that the construct of plagiarism itself might be a rather tenuous one, a relic of imperialism, an outdated cultural imposition, and merely a recent concept of the modern age. Such arguments seem to lack substance. We know what constitutes authorship, and we can easily recognize that plagiarism constitutes a violation of an author and his or her textual creations. It doesn’t take a scholar to tell us whether certain chunks of language have been stolen from someone else. In fact, certain modern scholars have been known to be rather uncooperative and even hesitant in pointing out plagiarism for what it is. Plagiarism is theft, plain and simple. Instead of asking the question, “What is an Author ?” as did Michel Foucault, it might be better to ask the very simple question, “What is a Plagiarist ?” As for Roland Barthes’ assertion in the same vein that “The Death of the Author” has occurred, it seems that both Foucault and Barthes' contempt for the Author was expressed in some rather plagiaristic utterances, a parroting of the Nietschean "God is dead" assertion.[1] The sort of un-original assertion which might be expected from a Plagiarazzi collaborator. After all, a plagiarist--so often with the help of collaborators and sympathizers--steals the very livelihood of a text’s real author, thus relegating that author to obscurity for as long as the plagiarist’s name usurps a text, rather than the author being recognized as the text's originator. Plagiarism of an author condemns that author to death as a text’s rightfully acknowledged creator . . . On then to a more relevant question at hand, “What is a Plagiarist ?”
A Plagiarist sucks the lifeblood right out of a text for his own selfish nourishment. He cares not that the life of the Author is forfeited through his bloodthirsty textual savagery-ravagery and asserts blasphemously that a text has somehow attained “the right to kill, to become the murderer of its author”. [2] The Plagiarist siphons off the life giving crimson fluid as ink for his own pen, without a thought for either the Author, or for the Reader. And he splashes this stolen red ink freely on the pages of his own textual plagiarations. To the Plagiarist, the words are there for the taking. After all, whose words are they really anyway? Who can rightfully claim ownership of the discourse that characterizes human communication? The Plagiarist justifies his plagiarisms through pseudo-philosophizations and self-justifications as he happily helps himself to your blood, my blood—anybody’s blood, as long as that red ink remains life-givingly fluid, un-encrusted, as yet un-congealed. A Plagiarist is a textual vampire . . .
TEXT.. TEXT..TEXT..TEXT
What is a Plagiarist? Cartoon Version. Trolling Cartoonist-Manipulator Lifts Answers to Question, Cartoon Rage Follows "I
wish I were a Plagiarist!"
[3]
1.
Please notice the choice of terminology here. The anti-theological
activities which Barthes and Foucault celebrated and hoped
to to inspire were pre-dated by the Nietschean "God is
dead" assertion. Saying that the Author had died, as
a close reading of Barthes and Foucault will reveal, was the
equivalent of the well-known "God is dead" proclamation.
Although this repetition by Barthes and Foucault might seem
to be a "rather plagiaristic utterance", most readers
of these French semioticians would understand the allusion
to this previous use of the death metaphor in reference to
God. In this sense, Barthes and Foucault were mere parrots
as opposed to plagiarists, and this poststructuralist duo
is featured on this website not because they are counted among
the "Famous Plagiarists", but because of the wide
influence which their works have had on scholarly discussions
of authorship. 3. Found this cartoon on an Internet blog/discussion forum. Curiously, the image was titled "Troll002". If I can remember exactly where I found this, I'll link to this blog troll which references "Famous Plagiarists". They must have liked my answers to "What is a Plagiarist?" ! ! ! Found it. This was on a discussion forum at http://s7.invisionfree.com/n3ta/index.php?showtopic=4282 and the actual image URL for "TROLL002.gif" is http://davidguy.brinkster.net/goaste/pictures/nemi/TROLL002.gif Maybe it's just the old English teacher in me coming out, but that last line should properly read "I wish I were a plagiarist" in the subjunctive mood. Not that folks seem to care much about proper use of the subjunctive mood anymore . . . the English language deteriorates even further. Or is it not possible for a language to "deteriorate" as some linguists would have us believe. Language changes, to be sure. Are such changes always for the better? I don't think so, but that's just another of my "old-fashioned" views coming out I guess, kind of like the "old-fashioned" view that plagiarism is still a wrong thing to do (i.e. "Plagiarism is an old-fashioned concept, and not always as straightforward as it might appear." Julia M. Klein in "Plagiarism and Other Unoriginal Sins." Chronicle of Higher Education. November 11, 2005). For being such an "old-fashioned concept", there's been a tremendous amount of interest in the new scholarly journal Plagiary: Cross-Disciplinary Studies in Plagiarism, Fabrication, and Falsification (press coverage in New York Times, Inside Higher Ed, Chronicle of Higher Education, Sunday-Telegraph, Prospect Magazine [the last 2 published in Great Britain], . . . ) As the cartoon
above (swiped from both the original cartoonist and myself)
correctly indicates, there are certainly benefits to engaging
in plagiarism: more time for extra-curricular activities in
the case of students; easy quotes for journalists; "stressless
scholarship" for politicians-in-training who want to
devote time to things more important than learning; a great
idea for movie directors or songwriters. What's so old-fashioned
about wanting something that belongs to somebody else? Don't
we still do quite a bit of this today? Or have greed and laziness
gone out the window?
Disclaimer: All of the famous plagiarists featured in this webspace remain “alleged plagiarists”, the documented allegations having been made by others in the professional literature and/or the popular media. Further details relating to these allegations will be forthcoming in the book edition of Famous Plagiarists. Although Dr. Lesko is a professor at Saginaw Valley State University, the Famous Plagiarists Research Project represents the individual research of John P. Lesko, plagiarologist, and SVSU accepts no responsibility for the content of these pages. Comments or questions should be directed to
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Dedicated
to every Author who has been criminally assaulted and left
for dead by a Plagiarist. May your resurrection, return,
and revenge be swiftly realized.
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