The Next Literary Movement is the Brain as the Humanities are Throttled by High Tech

At Next Big Thing - Literary Scholars Turn to Science - NYTimes.com Patricia Cohen writes:

"Literature, like other fields including history and political science, has looked to the technology of brain imaging and the principles of evolution to provide empirical evidence for unprovable theories."

Copyrights, Originality and Authenticity: Axolotl Roadkill by Helene Hegemann - a New but Partly Cribbed Novel about Sex, Drugs and Clubbing

Copyright infringing plagiarism or literary remix?

In Author, 17, Says It’s ‘Mixing,’ Not Plagiarism, Nicholas Kulish at the NYTimes.com informs us that Helene Hegemann, a mere 17 years old - but daughter of Carl Hegemann, one of the most prominent and innovative dramaturgs in Europe, now a Professor at the Department of Dramaturgy in Leipzig - seems to be following in her father's footsteps and has landed a beststeller in Germany with her first book, Axolotl Roadkill, a novel just announced as a finalist for the $20,000 fiction prize of the Leipzig Book Fair - a nice gesture to one of their own?

It was Carl Hegemann:

"[W]ho developed the theoretical superstructure for this hybrid artistry: "A reality is no longer encountered, but brought forth by the ‘members’ of a culture.”

But who really wrote this book?

One major problem with the book - as it turns out - is that:

"[A] blogger last week uncovered material in the novel taken from the less-well-known novel “Strobo,” by an author writing under the nom de plume Airen. In one case, an entire page was lifted with few changes."

As written in Helene Hegemann, the art of cut and paste in the Berliner Zeitung in picking the "European of the 'Week":

"Helene Hegemann says she’s sorry, she knows it was wrong “not to mention all the people whose writings helped me”. And yet she stands by her novel: after all, “there’s no such thing as originality anyway, there’s only authenticity”. What’s more, she’s only a “lodger” in her own mind: “I help myself to whatever inspires me.”"

One has to wonder about whether the father had his hand in the pie in this one.

Writers Can Prosper Without Intellectual Property - Gennady Stolyarov II - Mises Institute

Writers Can Prosper Without Intellectual Property
by Gennady Stolyarov II - Mises Institute

"It is commonly supposed that, whatever its moral and theoretical standing, intellectual property is necessary for creators of written works to make a living and — even more importantly — to continue to create. Here, I will set aside the theoretical status of copyright, which is amply discussed in Stephan Kinsella's Against Intellectual Property and Michele Boldrin and David Levine's Against Intellectual Monopoly. I will focus on existing and emerging possibilities for writers to earn a living in a world where no copyrights exist."

A Vintage Caper ? Why hasn't Peter Mayle's new book been published in Britain? – Telegraph Blogs

A Vintage Caper ?
Why hasn't Peter Mayle's new book been published in Britain? – Telegraph Blogs

Literary Tweets: 100+ of the Best Authors on Twitter

Literary Tweets: 100+ of the Best Authors on Twitter

Goodreads | The 2009 Goodreads Choice Awards

Goodreads | The 2009 Goodreads Choice Awards