Of possible interest, from Martha Woodmansee. DLB
Con/texts of Invention A working conference of the Society for Critical Exchange
With support from the Center for Law, Technology, and the Arts at Case Western Reserve University School of Law; the History of Science Department at Harvard University; the Washington College of Law at American University; and the Committee on Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science at the University of Chicago
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio April 20-22, 2006
This conference interrogates the social and cultural construction of invention - the diverse ways in which invention has been conceptualized in the arts and sciences in the broadest sense, including literature, the fine arts, entertainment, the physical and life sciences, law, economics,
medicine, engineering, agriculture, education, communications, computation, finance, and business. Emphasis will be on the institutional
cultures, rhetorics, and histories of invention across these fields. In this way the Society seeks to extend and deepen the inquiry of its long-standing project on "Intellectual Property and the Construction of Authorship" (see www.cwru.edu/affil/sce/IPCA_main.html). Papers reflecting upon the impact of the "critique of authorship" will thus be especially welcome. The conference will include lectures and panel discussions; to facilitate discussion, papers selected for panels will circulate in advance of the conference.
Topics may include (but are not limited to):
* the author as inventor * the inventor as author * imitation and originality * psychologies of creativity * pathologies such as writer's (or inventor's) block * genius * hack(ing) * tradition and the individual
talent, including the anxiety of influence * forgery * crimes such as plagiarism and piracy * the inventor as hero * invention vs. discovery * simultaneous discovery * joint/collective invention * useful and useless knowledge * the idea /expression distinction * invention vs. innovation *
material and social inputs to invention * invention policy * narratives of invention * depictions of invention, including patent drawings * invisible invention * inventing organisms * invention in rhetorical theory * genre and invention * invention and memory * invention in popular and children's literature * pedagogies of invention * invention and self-help, including
creativity workshops and invention promotion services * cross-cultural perspectives on invention * invention and power * imperialism and invention * universities and invention * rhetorics of entrepreneurship * representations of collaboration * corporate authorship/invention * economies of invention * legal incentives and disincentives * private and
public domains * discourses of intellectual commons, including free software and open source * collage and sampling * geographies of invention * ethnography of invention * gender and invention
Please send paper abstracts (no full papers please), a CV of no more than
three pages, and any suggestions for panel topics by October 5 to: dar29@case.edu.
Conference Organizers: Olufunmilayo Arewa, Law, Case Western Reserve University Mario Biagioli, History of Science, Harvard University Peter Jaszi, Law, American University Adrian Johns, History of Science, University of Chicago Martha Woodmansee, English and Law, Case Western Reserve University
Dan L. Burk Visiting Professor Cornell Law School Myron Taylor Hall Ithaca, NY 14853 USA Oppenheimer, Wolff & Donnelly Professor University of Minnesota Law School 229 19th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA *************************************** Voice: 612-626-8726 Fax: 612-625-2011