Unit convenor and teaching staff |
Unit convenor and teaching staff
Convenor
Professor John Potts
Contact via 9850 2163
Y3A 165J
Tuesdays 11 - 1
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Credit points |
Credit points
4
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Prerequisites |
Prerequisites
Admission to MRes
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Corequisites |
Corequisites
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Co-badged status |
Co-badged status
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Unit description |
Unit description
This unit is an inter-disciplinary study of authorship. The author is understood as literary author, composer/songwriter, film-maker, visual artist, choreographer or other creator of original works. The unit includes a historical study of changing conceptions of authorship, as well as consideration of the author in the age of the Internet and digital technology.
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Information about important academic dates including deadlines for withdrawing from units are available at https://www.mq.edu.au/study/calendar-of-dates
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
Assessment standards
Assessment standards in this unit align with the University's grade descriptors, available at: https://staff.mq.edu.au/work/strategy-planning-and-governance/university-policies-and-procedures/policies/assessment
Late submission / Special Consideration
Unless a Special Consideration request has been submitted and approved:
no assignment will be accepted more than seven (7) days (including weekends) after the original submission deadline.
Essays in this unit are to be submitted via Turnitin.
Marking criteria for the essays and seminar presentation are available on iLearn. Essay writing and referencing guide is also on iLearn.
Name | Weighting | Hurdle | Due |
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Minor Essay | 30% | No | 4 May |
Seminar presentation | 20% | No | Weeks 11-13 |
MajorEssay | 50% | No | 13 June |
Due: 4 May
Weighting: 30%
The first assignment is a minor research paper, of 2000 words, written on a topic of your choice related to authorship.
Due: Weeks 11-13
Weighting: 20%
A presentation delivered in the seminar of 20 minutes duration.
Due: 13 June
Weighting: 50%
This essay is the major research paper, of 3,000 words, on a topic of your choice within the domain of authorship studies. This essay must be on a different topic to the minor research paper, but it may expand on the topic of your seminar presentation. It should demonstrate wide reading, excellent research skills and in-depth critical analysis.
A book of readings on authorship will be provided by the convenor.
The bibliography lists other relevant works held in the library. Additional readings from these texts are suggested in the weekly schedule. Various press, magazine, film, TV and web sources will be provided throughout the semester.
SEMINAR SCHEDULE
WEEK 2: INTRODUCTION TO THE UNIT
5 March
WEEK 3: WHAT IS THE AUTHOR?
12 March
Michel Foucault, 'What Is an Author?' (1969)
Martha Woodmansee, 'On the Author Effect: Recovering Collectivity' (1994)
Additional Reading: Andrew Sarris (1968) 'Towards a Theory of Film History' (auteur theory) in Bill Nichols (ed) Movies and Methods, Berkeley: University of California Press (1976)
WEEK 4: THE HISTORY OF THE AUTHOR
19 March
Andrew Bennett, 'Authority, Ownership, Originality' in The Author (2005)
Sean Burke, 'Changing Conceptions of Authorship' in Authorship: From Plato to the Postmodern, A Reader (2000)
WEEK 5: COPYRIGHT AND TECHNOLOGY
26 March
Joanna Demers, 'Music as Intellectual Property' in Steal This Music (2006)
Cory Doctorow, 'How Copyright Broke' (2008)
Additional Reading: Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture (2004)
WEEK 6: EASTER BREAK
WEEK 7: 'THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR': POST-STRUCTURALISM AND POSTMODERNISM
9 April
Roland Barthes, 'The Death of the Author' (1969)
A. Murphie & J. Potts, 'Digital Aesthetics: Cultural Effects of New Media Technologies' in Culture and Technology (2003)
Additional Reading: Andrew Goodwin, 'Sample and Hold: Pop Music in the Digital Age of Reproduction' in Frith and Goodwin (eds) On Record, London: Routledge, 1990
MID-SEMESTER BREAK
WEEK 8: FILM AUTHORSHIP (Karen Pearlman)
30 April
Aaron Meskin, 'Authorship' (2008) in Livingston and Plantinga (eds) The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film, London: Routledge, 2008
WEEK 9: COPYRIGHT: FOR AND AGAINST
7 May
J. Smiers and M. Van Schijndel, 'A Level Cultural Playing Field' (2009)
Steve Collins, 'Kookaburra v. Down Under: It's Just Overkill' in Scan Journal Vol 7 No 1 2010
WEEK 10: THE NEAR-DEATH OF THE AUTHOR: DOWNLOADING
14 May
Linda Jaivin, 'Big Content' in Phillipa McGuinness (ed) Copyfight (2015)
D. Hunter & N. Suzor, 'Claiming the Moral High Ground in the Copyright Wars' in Copyfight (2015)
Jonathan Taplin (2017) ‘Napster, Spotify and the Fall of the Middle-Class Musician’, Rolling Stone 3 May 2017 at https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/move-fast-and-break-things-book-excerpt-w480401
WEEKS 11 - 13: STUDENT SEMINAR PRESENTATIONS
21 May – 4 June
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bennett, Andrew, The Author, London: Routledge, 2005
Bently, L., Davis, J. and Ginsburg, J (eds) Copyright and Piracy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010
Bettig, Ronald V., Copyrighting Culture: The Political Economy of Intellectual Property, Boulder: Westview, 1996
Burke, Sean (ed) Authorship From Plato to the Postmodern: A Reader, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000
Burke, Sean, The Death and Return of the Author, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010
Demers, Joanna, Steal this Music: How Intellectual property Law Affects Musical Creativity, Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2006
Doctorow, Cory, Content, San Francisco: Tachyon Publications, 2008
Lessig, Lawrence, Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity, New York: Penguin, 2004
McGuinness, Phillipa (ed) Copyfight, Sydney: NewSouth, 2015
Moran, Joe, Star Authors: Literary Celebrity in America, London: Pluto Press, 2000
Murphie, Andrew and Potts, John, Culture and Technology, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003
Postigo, Hector, The Digital Rights Movement, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2012
Smiers, J. and Van Schijndel, M., Imagine There is No Copyright and No Cultural Conglomerates Too..., Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, 2009
Taplin, Jonathan, Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google and Amazon Have Cornered Culture and What it Means For Us, New York: Macmillan, 2017
Woodmansee, Martha and Jaszi, Peter (eds) The Construction of Authorship, Durham: Duke University Press, 1994
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