Original Call for Papers
Participants Notes
Paper Abstracts
Registration

PROGRAM
All papers to be available and circulated in advance.

With support from the Department of English and the School of Law's Center for Law, Technology, and the Arts at Case Western Reserve University; the History of Science Department at Harvard University; the Washington College of Law at American University; and the Morris Fishbein Center for the History of Science and Medicine at the University of Chicago

As a "working" conference, Con/texts of Invention will not be open to the public, but the University community is welcome to attend sessions free of charge with a Case ID. Limited space will also be available for a charge at the social events. Those interested in attending these should contact Dawn Richards ( dar29@case.edu or 368-5135).

In the interest of discussion, conference papers will not be delivered orally but will instead be posted and should be read in advance.

Thurday, April 20

7:30 - 10:30 p.m. Buffet Reception, Glidden House Inn.

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Friday, April 21
Sessions held in Gund School of Law rooms 157 and 158. Please note some sessions are to be held concurrently.

9:00 - 10:30 a.m.
Panel A. (Gund 157) GENIUS REVISITED: INSPIRATION/PERSPIRATION
Chair and comments: Lisa Gitelman, Media Studies, Catholic U

1. Inspiration and Innovation
   Roberta Kwall, Law, DePaul U,

2. The Fuel of Interest and the Fire of Genius
  Oren Bracha, Law, U of Texas,

3. The Flash of Genius: Defining Invention in the Era of Corporate Research
  Paul Israel, Thomas A. Edison Archives, Rutgers U,

9:00-10:30 a.m.
Panel B. (Gund 158) PERSONHOOD, THE BODY AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Chair and comments: Lisa Maruca, Interdisciplinary Studies, Wayne State U

1. Runaway Bride: Self-Possession and the Conditions of Intellectual Property
  Joseph Loewenstein, English, Washington U

2. Advertising Cadavers in the Republic of Letters
  Daniel Margocsy, History of Science, Harvard U

3. Invention and Agency in Patent Law
  Hyo Yoon Kang, London School of Economics

10:45 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.
Panel A. (Gund 157) LIFE, DEATH AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Chair and comments: Mary Poovey, English, New York U

1. The Rise of Intellectual Property Rights in Seed Germplasm
  Keith Aoki, Law, U of Oregon,

2. Breeding, Ownership, and Agriculture:   Intellectual Property Protection in Animals since the      Late 18 th Century
   Daniel Kevles, History and Law, Yale U,

3. Rac-ing Patents/Patenting Race: An Emerging Political Geography of Intellectual Property in     Biomedicine
  Jonathan Kahn, Law, Hamline U,

 

12:15 - 1:30 p.m. Lunch
Provided by Glidden House Inn

1:30 - 3:00 p.m.
Panel A.   DEMOCRATIZING INVENTION (Gund 157)
Chair and comments: Christine MacLeod, Historical Studies, U of Bristol

1. "Ours and For Us": Invention and Working Class Power in the British Useful Knowledge   Movement
  Michael Rectenwald, English, Carnegie Mellon U

2. The Wondrous Childhood of the Wright Brothers: Twentieth-Century Narratives of Inventive   Boyhood
  Aaron L. Alcorn, History, Case Western Reserve U

3.©®EA TM : Intellectual Property Education Contest and Resource Guides for Grades 2-12
 Brenda Wojnowski, Inventive Education, Inc., National Inventors Hall of Fame Foundation

1:30-3:00 p.m.
Panel B.   SERIAL COLLABORATION (Gund 158)
Chair and comments: Ann Bartow, Law, U of South Carolina

1. Patent and Inventor Landscapes
  Tim Lenoir and Eric Giannella, History of Science, Duke U

2. Copy-Write: Eighteenth-Century Educational Technologies of Imitation and Invention
  Lisa Maruca, Interdisciplinary Studies, Wayne State U,

3. Cryptomnesia and Originality under the Copyright Clause
  Stephen Tropp, Law, Barry U,

3:15 - 4:45 p.m.
Panel A.   OPEN SOURCE, FREE SOFTWARE, CREATIVE COMMONS (Gund 157)
Chair and comments:   Michael Madison, Law, U of Pittsburgh

1. Positive Copyright and Creative Commons Licenses: How to Make a Marriage Work
  Maurizio Borghi, History, and Maria Lillà Montagnani , Law, Bocconi U, Milan,

2. Creative Commons: A Skeptical View of a Worthy Pursuit
  Niva Elkin-Koren, Law, U of Haifa

3. The Commodification and Exchange of Knowledge: Transnational Yoga
  Allison Fish, Cultural Anthropology, U of California, Irvine,

3:15 - 4:45 p.m.
Panel B. AUTHORS IN LAW (Gund 158)
Chair and comments:   Lewis Hyde, Creative Writing, Kenyon

1. Ghostwriting, Pro Se Litigants, and the Legal Culture of Plagiarism
  Jonathan Entin, Law and Political Science, Case Western Reserve U

2. Authoring an Invention: Nineteenth-Century American Law and Patent Authorship
  Kara Swanson, History of Science, Harvard U,

3. What Is a Judicial Author?
  Peter Friedman, Law, Case Western Reserve U,

5:00 - 6:30 p.m.
AUTHORS AND OTHERS (Gund 157)
Chair and comments: James Leach, Social Anthropology, Cambridge U

1. Eighteenth-Century Fan Fiction and Copyright Law
  Elizabeth Judge, Law, U of Ottawa

2. Your Second Life? The Performativity of Intellectual Property in Online Games
  Rosemary Coombe and Andrew Herman, Law, York U

3. On Software Authorship and Invention
  Christopher Kelty, Anthropology, Rice U,

6:30 - 7:30 p.m.
Cocktails, Blackacre room Gund hall.

Dinner on Your Own

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Saturday, April 22

9:00 - 10:30 a.m. ENVISIONING INVENTION (Gund 157)
Chair and comments: Mark Rose, English, U of California, Santa Barbara

1. Margins of Invention: Re-dedicating Women's Prints in Early Modern Italy
  Evelyn Lincoln, History of Art and Architecture, Brown U

2. Bureaucracy at a Glance: Visual Evidence and U.S. Patents, 1790-2005
  William Rankin, History of Science, History of Architecture, Harvard U

3. Images of Innovation: Art and Visual Culture in Patent Drawings
  Bettyann Holtzmann Kevles, History, Yale U, and Ellen Levy, College Art Association

10:45 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.
Panel A.   WHAT IS AN AUTHOR NOW? (Gund 157)
Chair and comments: Joshua Sarnoff, Law, American U

1. Happenstantial Authorship: The Element of Surprise in Faith-Based Human Cloning
  Debbora Battaglia, Anthropology, Mount Holyoke C,

2. The Penguin's Paradox: Political Economy of International Intellectual Property and the Paradox of Open Source
  David W. Opderbeck, Law, Baruch C, CUNY,

3. Inventive Artefacts: The Legal Agency of Plants
  Alain Pottage, London School of Economics, and Brad Sherman, Law, U of Queensland,

10:45 - 12:15 p.m.
Panel B.   COLLECTIVES (Gund 158)
Chair and comments: Wendy Gordon, Law, Boston U

1. Co-inventors and Co-authors: A Quantitative Analysis of Patent-Publication Pairs
  Francesco Lissoni, Economics, Bocconi U, Milan, and Fabio Montobbio, Economics, Insubria   U, Varese,

2. Screen Credit for Everyone
  Catherine Fisk, Law, Duke U,

3. Patenting the Bomb: Nuclear Weapons and/as Intellectual Property
  Alex Wellerstein, History of Science, Harvard U,

12:15 - 1:30 p.m. Lunch

1:30 - 3:15 p.m.
Panel A. TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGES (Gund 157)
Chair and comments: Marc Perlman, Music, Brown U

1. Problem(s) with Copyright for Native American Oral Traditions
  Emily Clark, English, Case Western Reserve U,

2. From Homeric Epic to Open-Source Software: Towards a Network Model of Invention
  Dorothy Noyes, English and Anthropology, Ohio State U,

3. The Imaginary Politics of Access to Knowledge
  Jane Anderson, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, and Kathy   Bowrey, Law, U of New South Wales

4. Confucianism and Inventive Genius in Imperial China
  Peter Yu, Law, Michigan State U,

12:15 - 1:30 p.m.
Panel B.   INTERROGATING KEY CONCEPTS (Gund 158)
Chair and comments: Craig Nard, Law, Case Western Reserve U

1. Novelty, Decorum, and the Commodification of Invention in the Renaissance
  Carolyn Miller, English, North Carolina State U

2. Frames from the Framers
  Lewis Hyde, Creative Writing, Kenyon C

3. Creation Myths: Mapping Originality in Space and Time
  Graham Dutfield and Uma Suthersanen, Law, Queen Mary U, London

3:30 p.m.
Departure for Milan, Ohio, birthplace of Thomas Alva Edison and epicenter of American innovation, as exemplified not only by the career of Edison but also that of his neighbor, Isaac W. Hoover, father of the Potato Digger and other potato-related innovations (for details, see: www.milanohio.com)

7:00 p.m.
Dinner at Cullinary Vegetable Institute, Milan, Ohio (for details, see: www.culinaryvegetableinstitute.com)

8:30 - 10:00 p.m.
HEROES AND HERO WORSHIP (Culinary Institute)
Chair and comments: Adrian Johns, History of Science, U of Chicago

1. Heroes of the Industrial Revolution, Defenders of the Pax Britannica: Constructing Inventors in   Victorian Britain
  Christine MacLeod, Historical Studies, U of Bristol

2. Thomas Edison and the Forms of Invention
  James Brooke-Smith, English, New York U,

3. Codes of Value
  Gabriella Coleman, Anthropology, Rutgers U,

 

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Sunday, April 23

9:00 - 10:45 p.m. Panel A.   NETWORKS OF INVENTION (Gund 157)
Chair and comments: Lionel Bently, Law, Cambridge U

1. Originality and the Law: The Case of W.H. Ireland's Shakespeare Forgeries
  Robert Miles

2. Technology and Invention: Communication Systems and the Problem of Technodeterminism
  Clifford Siskin, English, New York U, and William Warner, English, U of California, Santa   Barbara,

3. Film and the Ingenuity of Genre
  Jane Gaines, Literature, Duke U,

4. Reinventing the Wheel: Classification on and of Digital Networks
  Lisa Gitelman, Media Studies, Catholic U,

9:00 - 10:45 p.m. Panel B.   EXHIBITION-ISM (Gund 158)
Chair and comments:   Keith Aoki, Law, U of Oregon

1. Invention as Masterpiece: Balancing Authorship and Evolution in the "Deutsches Museum"
  Eve Duffy, History, Trinity U and U of North Carolina, Greensboro,

2. The Color of Invention: Representing Creative Inspiration in Film
  Jasmin Mersmann, Cultural Sciences, Humboldt U, Berlin,

3. Invention and Originality in the Law of Obscenity
  Amy Adler, Law, New York U,

11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
REPORTS OF THE AUTHOR'S DEATH HAVE BEEN GREATLY EXAGGERATED: DEBATING AN AGENDA FOR RESEARCH AND ACTION (Gund 157)

1. Mario Biagioli, History of Science, Harvard U

2. Peter Jaszi, Law, American U

3. Martha Woodmansee, English and Law, Case Western Reserve U

4. Conference participants, to be tapped

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Conference Coordinators


Site Coordinators
Nick Petzak and Martha Woodmansee, SCE, Case Western Reserve U.

Special thanks to
Dawn Richards, Gund School of Law, Case Western Reserve U.