[ilds] ILDS Digest, Vol 104, Issue 23

Tue Dec 29 12:51:01 PST 2015

"students and some academics value career advancement over contributions to knowledge and nurturing learning. " - You bet they do, as I know very well. I have seen student essays in which the student, having lifted quotes from Wikipedia, didn't even bother to change the font!!! So much for intelligence, but (to be cynical) full marks for the effort to further their career. Since most academic work in the humanities at least, is paltry and contributes very little to knowledge or nurturing learning, it doesn't really matter whether or not they are cheating on each other - they haven't the spunk to cheat on each other in sexual matters, so they resort to doing it with other body parts - the body of the text organically transplanted fgrom one book to another. So much more cosy. Which in my experience is what a very high proportion of academics do too. Cheating doesn't stop when you get your BA or even your PhD. I have seen respectable books by academics anxious for "advancement" which show that their principal motive is NOT contributing to knowledge or nurturing learning - far from it, simply remarketing someone else's work as one's own. It can be done cleverly so that no-one notices. But all that relates to students and their teachers. What LD (and so many others) do is a completely different game. I'm reading Sisman's life of le Carre at present and it's clear that there are times when David Cornwell didn't know what le Carre was writing, or couldn't in his recollection distinguish between what "really" happened and what le Carre has written. And other times when he did know.I think it's remarkable that this discussion (LD's plagiarism) has gone on for so long before anyone mentioned the words "copyright" or "intellectual property". The laws on copyright are so fexible and vague that anyone can run rings round them. And they do.
RP
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From: ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca [mailto:ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca]
Sent: Tuesday, December 29, 2015 09:00 PM
To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca
Subject: ILDS Digest, Vol 104, Issue 23

Send ILDS mailing list submissions to	ilds at lists.uvic.caTo subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit	https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ildsor, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to	ilds-request at lists.uvic.caYou can reach the person managing the list at	ilds-owner at lists.uvic.caWhen replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specificthan "Re: Contents of ILDS digest..."Today's Topics: 1. Re: ILDS Digest, Vol 104, Issue 22 (mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.org) 2. Mustapha Marrouchi and Lawrence Durrell (Bruce Redwine) 3. Re: Mustapha Marrouchi and Lawrence Durrell (James Gifford) 4. Re: Nessim, Rex Warner, & George de Menasce (James Gifford)----------------------------------------------------------------------Message: 1Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2015 20:47:56 +0000From: mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.orgTo: ilds at lists.uvic.caSubject: Re: [ilds] ILDS Digest, Vol 104, Issue 22Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"Mustapha Marouchi certainly made a good impression when he attended the Durrell School some years ago, but he did and does seem "plausible" and it does not surprise me that he has been detected "borrowing" - but is there a distinction to be made between plagiarism in academic work (i.e presenting others' work as one's own) which is rife among students these days (as Dr Gifford knows to his cost) and taking bits from others' books and putting them into one's novels and other imaginative fiction(as LD did , as we know, In Prospero's Cell (from Sophie Atkinson) and in Caesar's Vast Ghost (from...?).As far as plausibility is concerned, Marouchi would not be the only chancer, plagiarist and thief who has graced the Durrell School - some escaped detection at the time, others were so transparent as to defy arrest. Takes all sorts...RP-----Original Message-----From: ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca [mailto:ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca]Sent: Monday, December 28, 2015 09:01 PMTo: ilds at lists.uvic.caSubject: ILDS Digest, Vol 104, Issue 22Send ILDS mailing list submissions to	ilds at lists.uvic.caTo subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit	https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ildsor, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to	ilds-request at lists.uvic.caYou can reach the person managing the list at	ilds-owner at lists.uvic.caWhen replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specificthan "Re: Contents of ILDS digest..."Today's Topics: 1. Nessim, Rex Warner, & George de Menasce (James Gifford) 2. Re: Nessim, Rex Warner, & George de Menasce (Bruce Redwine)----------------------------------------------------------------------Message: 1Date: Sun, 27 Dec 2015 16:59:34 -0800From: James Gifford To: ILDS Listserv Subject: [ilds] Nessim, Rex Warner, & George de MenasceMessage-ID: <56808976.9010003 at gmail.com>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowedHello all,This post from Michael Haag might be of interest!http://michaelhaag.blogspot.ca/2015/12/nessim-hosnani-in-lawrence-durre! lls.htmlAnd just for Bruce, a dastardly bit on Mustapha Marrouchi writing on Edward Said:http://michaelhaag.blogspot.ca/2015/11/beyond-limit-with-mustapha-marrouchi.htmlThe revelations on Marrouchi to which Michael refers are here:http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/education/unlv-fires-professor-accused-serial-plagiarism(as an aside, the article on "Blodgett" in which Marrouchi's plagiarism was detected is Ted Blodgett from my alma mater, the University of Alberta -- the journal that published the piece is known for having especially rigorous peer review, so this is a real surprise)Just for the record, I've previously pointed out that Marrouchi's /Edward Said at the Limits/ is missing citations to works from which it quotes... I wrote to him in March 2006 (I didn't attend the DSC seminars he was in), and he told me it was in reference to Said's private papers that he'd read in Said's office, but now I'm wondering if that was just invented. It appears unreliable narrators are! ubiquitous these days!All best,James------------------------------Message: 2Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2015 10:35:33 -0800From: Bruce Redwine To: James Gifford ,	James Gifford	Cc: Bruce Redwine Subject: Re: [ilds] Nessim, Rex Warner, & George de MenasceMessage-ID: <03EF33F2-93A3-4D76-8114-A0E67CFCF5EC at earthlink.net>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"As to the ?of all people? characterization of Rex Warner on Michael Haag?s blog, I?ll note that Warner was a well-known and highly productive classicist from Oxford. Among his translations of Latin and Greek authors was Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War (1954), which became a bestseller for Penguin, over a million copies sold. My first exposure to Thucydides was from Warner?s translation, and I remember it fondly, although the Thomas Hobbes?s translation endures as another classic in 17th-century English. Warner made a most difficult author highly readable in modern English. He may be forgiven for a slight work on English public schools, probably written to pick up a few coins, as writers ! are sometimes wont to do.As to Mustapha Marrouchi and his problems, the breadth of the charge of ?serial? plagiarism is staggering, but I would like to know what the committee at UNLV meant by finding ?similarities with other works.? I was recently talking to a law professor who specializes in Intellectual Property, and she mentioned (if I heard her right) that under U.S. copyright law a writer?s words are protected but not his/her ideas. I assume the people at UNLV knew what they were doing and nailed Marrouchi for pilfering the actual words of assorted writers without proper accreditation. In this regard, scholars are sometimes held to a higher standard than creative writers. Michael will recall that Lawrence Durrell stole a whole chunk of his words in Caesar?s Vast Ghost without some much as a by-your-leave. For which he could have been taken to court. Durrell made a habit of such ?borrowings.? And no, because Shakespeare did it, doesn?t mean that old LD was allowed to d! o so. Copyright la! ws didn?t exist in England during Shakespeare?s time.Bruce> On Dec 27, 2015, at 4:59 PM, James Gifford wrote:> > Hello all,> > This post from Michael Haag might be of interest!> > http://michaelhaag.blogspot.ca/2015/12/nessim-hosnani-in-lawrence-durrells.html> > And just for Bruce, a dastardly bit on Mustapha Marrouchi writing on Edward Said:> > http://michaelhaag.blogspot.ca/2015/11/beyond-limit-with-mustapha-marrouchi.html> > The revelations on Marrouchi to which Michael refers are here:> > http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/education/unlv-fires-professor-accused-serial-plagiarism> > (as an aside, the article on "Blodgett" in which Marrouchi's plagiarism was detected is Ted Blodgett from my alma mater, the University of Alberta -- the journal that published the piece is known for having especially rigorous peer review, so this is a real surprise)> > Just for the record, I've previously pointed out that Marrouchi's /Edward Said at the Limits/ is missing citations to works from which it quotes... I wrote to him in March 200! 6 (I didn't attend the DSC seminars he was in), and he told me it was in reference to Said's private papers that he'd read in Said's office, but now I'm wondering if that was just invented. It appears unreliable narrators are ubiquitous these days!> > All best,> James> _______________________________________________-------------- next part --------------An HTML attachment was scrubbed...URL: ------------------------------Subject: Digest Footer_______________________________________________ILDS mailing listILDS at lists.uvic.cahttps://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds------------------------------End of ILDS Digest, Vol 104, Issue 22*************************************-------------- next part --------------An HTML attachment was scrubbed...URL: ------------------------------Message: 2Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2015 17:17:45 -0800From: Bruce Redwine To: James Gifford Cc: Bruce Redwine Subject: [ilds] Mustapha Marrouchi and Lawrence DurrellMessage-ID: <08EB34A9-CFAE-43D0-BC53-DA401A67B66C at earthlink.net>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"It takes all sorts, indeed. Durrell?s ?use? of his sources, if you will, has been discussed extensively on this listserv. Since it?s once again coming up, we can agree that there?s little, if any, agreement. My view is that Durrell plagiarized material in Prospero?s Cell, Balthazar, and Caesar?s Vast Ghost, to name only three egregious examples. He did this deliberately, in my opinion. I don?t know if he himself considered it a ?crime??that I doubt, for he seems to have forgotten what were actually his own words and what were someone else?s. I think, however, that had he been found out at the time he would have run into big problems with his publishers, Faber in particular. Why? Because there is a big difference between dropping witty allusions (? la the High Moderns) and the theft (in bits or chunks) of some other writer?s prose. It appears that Marrouchi indulged in the latter. Durrell?s practice is open to debate.Bruce> On Dec 28, 2015, at 12:47 PM, mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.org wrote:> > Mustapha Marouchi certainly made a good impression when he attended the Durrell School some years ago, but he did and does seem "plausible" and it does not surprise me that he has been detected "borrowing" - but is there a distinction to be made between plagiarism in academic work (i.e presenting others' work as one's own) which is rife among students these days (as Dr Gifford knows to his cost) and taking bits from others' books and putting them into one's novels and other imaginative fiction(as LD did , as we know, In Prospero's Cell (from Sophie Atkinson) and in Caesar's Vast Ghost (from...?).> As far as plausibility is concerned, Marouchi would not be the only chancer, plagiarist and thief who has graced the Durrell School - some escaped detection at the time, others were so transparent as to defy arrest. Takes all sorts...> RP-------------- next part --------------An HTML attachment was scrubbed...URL: ------------------------------Message: 3Date: Tue, 29 Dec 2015 09:51:43 -0800From: James Gifford To: ilds at lists.uvic.caSubject: Re: [ilds] Mustapha Marrouchi and Lawrence DurrellMessage-ID: <5682C82F.7020509 at gmail.com>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowedHi Bruce,As it happens, I'm going through Caesar's Vast Ghost fairly carefully just now -- I think some of the hints are in the references to "commonplace books." Durrell's project around this time in the Notebooks of Demonax suggest his move from the Quintet to a novel that works aphoristically. His method involved moving from his quarry books the novel by shoring up fragments (to borrow from one of those High Moderns). By the later parts of his career, I think he just wanted to let the fragments be on their own and leave the shoring to the reader. The rightly egregious theft from Haag in /Caesar/ strikes me as a product of his carelessness (and editorial help) in the process of moving from commonplace book to "book" book. He wasn't interested in it at that point, and informally some suggest it wasn't a book entirely of his own concoction too.I tend not to be as worried about things in the Quartet. The notebook method is the same, and I'm generally inclined to see it as allusive more than theft, although I understand your point. Students will often tell me they copied a quotation and then forgot it was a quotation while revising, mistaking it for their own writing -- when the student's writing is very weak and the quotation is excellent, I find that harder to believe, especially in a very short essay in which the thefts make up the majority of the work... For Durrell, looking at the notebooks, where the copied portions are more on the order of sentences rather than pages, the movement from commonplace book or quarry book to final novel strikes me as a combination of allusion and method. "Be ye part of one another" or books made up of spare parts. Kathy Acker made an art of it (including lifting from Durrell).What I don't see in Durrell is the scenario of setting a book beside his typewriter to lift passages into this novel draft... That looks a lot more like what Marrouchi appears to have done, or even more likely, cut & paste from the internet.Unfortunately, the instrumentalization of learning in the neoliberal university has prioritized advancement (the code word for endowment growth), and that makes students and some academics value career advancement over contributions to knowledge and nurturing learning. In the UK, the "productivity" measures even include how many times an article is cited as a measure for advancement -- yet citations saying "this article is rubbish" still count in that quantified measure, so being debunked extensively is a good career move! Happy, Canada and the USA haven't created such a national system (yet), but we have our own set of troubles in academia too.All best,JamesOn 2015-12-28 5:17 PM, Bruce Redwine wrote:> It takes all sorts, indeed. Durrell?s ?use? of his sources, if you> will, has been discussed extensively on this listserv. Since it?s once> again coming up, we can agree that there?s little, if any, agreement.> My view is that Durrell plagiarized material in /Prospero?s Cell,> Balthazar,/ and /Caesar?s Vast Ghost,/ to name only three egregious> examples. He did this deliberately, in my opinion. I don?t know if he> himself considered it a ?crime??that I doubt, for he seems to have> forgotten what were actually his own words and what were someone else?s.> I think, however, that had he been found out at the time he would have> run into big problems with his publishers, Faber in particular. Why?> Because there is a big difference between dropping witty allusions (?> la the High Moderns) and the theft (in bits or chunks) of some other> writer?s prose. It appears that Marrouchi indulged in the latter.> Durrell?s practice is open to debate.>> Bruce>>>>>> On Dec 28, 2015, at 12:47 PM, mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.org>>  wrote:>>>> Mustapha Marouchi certainly made a good impression when he attended>> the Durrell School some years ago, but he did and does seem>> "plausible" and it does not surprise me that he has been detected>> "borrowing" - but is there a distinction to be made between plagiarism>> in academic work (i.e presenting others' work as one's own) which is>> rife among students these days (as Dr Gifford knows to his cost) and>> taking bits from others' books and putting them into one's novels and>> other imaginative fiction(as LD did , as we know, In Prospero's Cell>> (from Sophie Atkinson) and in Caesar's Vast Ghost (from...?).>> As far as plausibility is concerned, Marouchi would not be the only>> chancer, plagiarist and thief who has graced the Durrell School - some>> escaped detection at the time, others were so transparent as to defy>> arrest. Takes all sorts...>> RP>>>> _______________________________________________> ILDS mailing list> ILDS at lists.uvic.ca> https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds>------------------------------Message: 4Date: Tue, 29 Dec 2015 10:06:06 -0800From: James Gifford To: ilds at lists.uvic.caSubject: Re: [ilds] Nessim, Rex Warner, & George de MenasceMessage-ID: <5682CB8E.9080305 at gmail.com>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowedOn 2015-12-28 10:35 AM, Bruce Redwine wrote:> As to the ?of all people? characterization of Rex Warner on Michael> Haag?s blog, I?ll note that Warner was a well-known and highly> productive classicist from Oxford. Among his translations of Latin and> Greek authors was /Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War/> (1954), which became a bestseller for Penguin, over a million copies> sold. My first exposure to Thucydides was from Warner?s translation,> and I remember it fondlyFor what it's worth (and I think we've discussed this online before), Nessim's historical dreams are created out of Warner's translation of the Anabasis. Would Warner, whom Durrell knew, have seen this as theft or a tribute to his own excellent work? I suspect the latter, but I wonder if his library is extant and what marginalia might be in his copy of the Quartet.I recently acquired some of Rona Murray's Durrell books from her library, so the next time I'm in Victoria I plan to see what may be hiding in her papers... At the Louisville conference in February, I'll be talking about how H. D.'s readings in the Quartet shaped some of her interesting late work. > I would like to know what the committee at UNLV > meant by finding ?similarities with other works.? > I was recently talking to a law professor who > specializes in Intellectual Property, and she > mentioned (if I heard her right) that under U.S. > copyright law a writer?s words are protected but > not his/her ideas. I assume the people at UNLV > knew what they were doing and nailed Marrouchi > for pilfering the actual words of assorted > writers without proper accreditation. In this > regard, scholars are sometimes held to a higher > standard than creative writers.I'd imagine it was the issue of a "higher standard" rather than direct copying verbatim. If an academic rewrites an article's findings entirely in his or her own words (not plagiarism) but without attribution and claiming the ideas to be his or her own, it could certainly be understood as misconduct even if it's perfectly legal. My understanding is that in the USA there are elements of ideas that can be protected by copyright even if words are not directly stolen.As for copyright and plagiarism in academia, I'd imagine there would need to be some form of damages for such things to proceed to court, and given the context, I would think "damage" would be more likely to be demonstrated by the publishers than the authors of the original works. Can I sue over the French translation of /Pied Piper of Lovers/ copying from my editorial apparatus without attribution? Not likely since I don't earn anything from it...All best,James------------------------------Subject: Digest Footer_______________________________________________ILDS mailing listILDS at lists.uvic.cahttps://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds------------------------------End of ILDS Digest, Vol 104, Issue 23*************************************

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