Monday, March 16, 2009
Former Student Helps Herself to Teacher's Work
Professor Kathryn Sutherland, a Jane Austen expert, claims her former student's latest, Jane's Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World, recycles her own work without proper accreditation. For her part, Claire Harman insists otherwise; and, until the former produces word-by-word proof of her charges against the latter, it's business as usual, at least as far as Canongate, the book's publisher, is concerned. (Why would an Oxford professor risk her reputation and pension unless she had a point? She is, after all, the literary world's leading expert on Austeniana. Let's hope she produces that proof. Surely one of her TAs can help with that task?)
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Kathryn Sutherland isn't risking anything. She's having a jealous grumble. Harman's book is coming out five years later, on a different subject, and cites the Sutherland in the proper way. What is the problem with that? Sutherland seems to be accusing Harman of stealing a book she hasn't written yet - how can that be? Sutherland doesn't own Austen.
ReplyDeleteIf Sutherland had plans to write such a book and you know this to be a fact, her claims are indeed suspect (or specious, even); however, to back up one step, if Sutherland gave Harman permission to capitalise on her own work, a fact not uncommon in the world of biographical letters, then she's obviously crying sour gripes.
ReplyDeleteI have no opinion on this one way or t'other or, at least, not until Sutherland proves her claims word-by-word, an activity she could assign to a TA at Oxford in lieu of teaching a section of a course, not a big problem, AFAIK.
I know Philip Marchand gave me carte blanche to use his "adult" biography of Marshall McLuhan for my own young-adult version of the maestro's story; and, I did state, right at the outset of the work, my book depended heavily upon Phil's painstaking research.
(Phil, BTW, was the outside expert reader on the manuscript and he gave it five stars; so, there you go.)
Maybe Sutherland's miffed courtesy wasn't practised since her "contribution" wasn't front-prelimned, as it were (in the way, say, Phil's was in Wise Guy?
Yeah, I'm reaching . . . But, again, this makes me so happy I decided my avocation did not lie within the walls of that Tower, of which McLuhan said, "They've been asleep for five-hundred years" (and, since he said that over fifty years ago, I'd bet it's now six-hunnert :)).
Oh, yeah, he once said, "You must remember, people in the Academy do not love each another." (That's when I bolted.)
I have to say, the 'former student' is a bit much. It must have been decades ago. Sutherland is making out like Harman was her TA and raided her filing cabinet. Raided what, anyway? A 'popular' book. But Sutherland couldn't write one of those to save her life. Jeese, have you read 'Textual Lives'? A living wonder of dreariness. And every time she tries to get down with the people, like the UK Guardian or something, it comes out arch. Patronising and arch.
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