05 Nov XVIII Colloquium on Mexican Literature
Thursday, November 5, 2015/ 4:30 PM
Mosher Alumni
Friday, November 6, 2015/ 9:00 AM
MultiCultural Center, UCSB
Saturday, November 7, 2015/ 9:00 AM
Casa de la Guerra
This year, the colloquium will be dedicated to the theme of “Real or Fake” in history, culture, literature, cinema, and other arts in Mexico. The idea is to discern between an original and a copy, verifying when a work of art, a discourse, an action, is original or not, and how to know if it is real or fake, original or a copy. It can even be real, but not original; a fake can be extraordinary, a copy could be better than the original, and often times a replica is a bad copy.
We start by asking what constitutes originality in a work of art. Does originality exist? When is imitation (imitation) a model of the times, and when does it become a copy or perhaps plagiarism? What happens when a piece of work is a copy of another copy of yet another one?
In the case of plagiarism in literature and other arts, as well as in academia, we consider, for example, the copying of themes, ideas, storylines, motives, topics, scenes, characters, vocabulary (lexical and syntactical), expressions, similar treatments of themes (although “spirit of the age” coincidences may exist), interpretations. But we must differentiate: dealing with the same theme is not necessarily plagiarism, but developing the theme in a similar form. Besides, the criteria to presume –decide– that some work is a copy of another one changes with time, and what used to be “natural” and correct in a later period may not be so. Currently the use of Internet favors plagiarism (mostly academic), and this same use provides plagiarized sources that were previously difficult (or almost impossible) to locate. The Mexican writer Juan José Arreola said: “Ownership of a text is relative, almost nonexistent.”
The full schedule of events is available here.
Sponsored by the Chicano Studies Institute, the Depts. of Comparative Literature, Chicana and Chicano Studies, Film and Media Studies, Spanish and Portuguese and Feminist Studies, Graduate Division, Latin American and Iberian Studies, the Luis Leal Endowed Chair, the Office of the Associate Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Academic Policy, the Interpreting Office of Marisa del Río, UC-Mexicanistas (Intercampus Research Program), and the IHC.