American Copyright Expansion to be Discussed in Terms of Creative Process

Media contact: Noelle Lemoine, communications assistant; tele: (413) 597-4277; email: [email protected]

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., April 3, 2003–Laura Murray, assistant professor of English at Queen’s University, Canada, will give an informal talk on “Founders and Foreigners in the Rhetoric of American Copyright Expansion and Copyright Critique” on Tuesday, April 8, at 4 p.m. in the Dodd House common room.

Murray’s research interests include cultural theory, particularly concerning colonialism, translation, nationalism, and spoken v. written language; history and cultural politics of intellectual property law; and theoretical issues arising from scholarly editing. She will discuss notions of creative process and ownership in her presentation.

“Copyright law is an area of grave concern these days, but also an area to which I believe literary theorists can make useful contributions,” she’s written. “The dominant strain in copyright law rarely casts any doubt on concepts such as originality, expression, or authorship, and shows little awareness of intertextuality, dialogism, or the shared discourses within and between which utterances or writings exist.”

She is the author of “To Do Good to My Indian Brethren: The Writing of Joseph Johnson,” about a Mohegan Indian preacher, schoolteacher and leader of the movement to relocate eastern Christian Indians to “Brotherton” in upper New York State. She was co-editor of “Talking on the Page: Editing Aboriginal Oral Texts” (with Keren Rice). Her articles have appeared in the American Quarterly, New England Quarterly, American Literary History, and Canadian Review of American Studies, among other scholarly publications.

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