ENG1023: Authorship: Plato to Wikipedia

Abstract

Welcome to YU! This course explores a topic that you might be surprised to learn will come up frequently in your work as a college student, representations of authorship over the last ~2500 years. From a historical perspective, and because depictions of this process have changed significantly over the centuries, we’ll consider how famous authors have described where ideas for writing come from: Is it divine inspiration? The world around them? Imitation of previous authors? Hard work and craftsmanship? An expression of who we are? Collaborations with others? We’ll also address more recent perspectives on who gets to be called an author: For instance, why is there a debate about whether Shakespeare authored his works? Are women writers part of the authorial tradition? What about Artificial Intelligence? Most important, we’ll look at why this topic matters to you, right now. Ever wonder why, as a student, you must produce original writing, usually on your own, when the writing that people do on the job and/or the internet can be anonymous, collaborative, imitative, and even, strictly speaking, plagiarized? We’ll tackle this question too and raise many others about the far-reaching topic of authorship.