{"id":206,"date":"2023-08-22T05:16:35","date_gmt":"2023-08-22T09:16:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/ubcacademicintegrity\/?post_type=chapter&p=206"},"modified":"2025-06-13T14:11:00","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T18:11:00","slug":"understanding-intertextuality-appropriation-and-truth-claims","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/ubcacademicintegrity\/chapter\/understanding-intertextuality-appropriation-and-truth-claims\/","title":{"raw":"Understanding 'Intertextuality,' 'Appropriation', and 'Truth Claims'","rendered":"Understanding ‘Intertextuality,’ ‘Appropriation’, and ‘Truth Claims’"},"content":{"raw":"In the next few paragraphs (again, I\u2019m being as transparent as possible), I plan to zero in on three broad \u2018debates\u2019 with which creative writers should \u2014 indeed, I think, must \u2014 be familiar. These have to do with whether or not originality is ever (really, truly, completely) attainable; questions about our right to write about anything we choose; and the vexed business of \u201ctelling the truth\u201d (How is \u2018truth\u2019 defined? Who decides? What are the possible repercussions when we play \u201cfast and loose\u201d with it?).\r\n\r\nBefore I address the three \u2018debates,\u2019 though, it\u2019s important to consider the commonly held (and not entirely unreasonable) assumption that creative writers should never have to worry about making mistakes. One could say that we\u2019re supposed to follow rules to do with grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Depending on our chosen forms, we\u2019re also expected to follow certain established conventions. If I\u2019m a poet who sets out to write a sonnet, or a sestina, or a haiku, for instance, I commit to adhering to the regulations that govern my chosen genre. As a playwright, the work that I produce is expected to include acts and scenes.\r\n\r\nOh, but creative writing is a discipline like no other. Our \u2018rules\u2019 can be bent, if not broken. We\u2019re allowed, if not encouraged, to be experimental. no capital letters? no problem. One-word sentences? Fine. Good. A novel in verse, a book-length poem, or a play without acts or scenes? All of these radical moves are entirely acceptable. Is it not true that \u2018artistic license\u2019 makes it possible for us to do whatever we please? \u201cAnything goes,\u201d in creative writing, because telling a creative writer what they can or can\u2019t do is tantamount to censorship. We don\u2019t have to follow a style guide (MLA, for example, APA, the Chicago Manual) to cite our sources. Except for practitioners of non-fiction (those who write memoirs, autobiographies, biographies, travelogues, and so on), creative writers are not expected or required to acknowledge their sources. When was the last time you read a poem or a play, a short story, novella, or novel that included footnotes or end-notes, in-text citations, or lists of references? Answer: never. The stories, poems, and plays that we produce are assumed to be entirely our own. New, fresh, and original. That, at least, is one, fairly widespread, perspective.\r\n

Intertextuality<\/strong><\/h1>\r\nSome, however, adopt a polar opposite philosophy, arguing that virtually nothing we write can be described as new, fresh, or original.\r\n\r\nHere, for example, I think about a passage from a private letter, sent by Mark Twain to Helen Keller (two very famous American writers) in 1903, some years after Keller was charged with plagiarism (she was eventually acquitted). \u201cAll ideas are second-hand,\u201d wrote Twain, in defense of his friend. The expanded extract from Twain\u2019s letter reads as follows:\r\n

Oh, dear me, how unspeakably funny and owlishly idiotic and grotesque was that \u2018plagiarism\u2019 farce! As if there was much of anything in any human utterance, oral or written, except plagiarism! The kernel, the soul \u2014 let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of\u00a0all\u00a0human utterances \u2014 is plagiarism. For substantially all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily used by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral calibre and his temperament, and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing. When a great orator makes a great speech you are listening to ten centuries and ten thousand men \u2014 but we call it\u00a0his\u00a0speech, and really some exceedingly small portion of it\u00a0is\u00a0his. But not enough to signify.<\/p>\r\nIn a nutshell, Twain writes, \u201cninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure and simple\u201d.\r\n\r\nI can\u2019t say that I disagree. I doubt that Carl Jung or Julia Kristeva would disagree either, two thinkers for whom, like Twain, originality is a myth. If you\u2019ve encountered, before, the terms \u201carchetype\u201d (or \u201carchetypal\u201d) and \u201cintertextuality\u201d (or \u201cintertext\u201d), then you\u2019re already acquainted with Jung and Kristeva. Jung (1875-1961), psychologist, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst, came up with the term \u201carchetype\u201d in the early 20th century as part of his work on the \u201ccollective unconscious\u201d \u2014 the notion, essentially, that certain \u201cresidues of ancestral memory\u201d are shared by all people in every culture (Baldick, 2015). These \u201cresidues\u201d (\u201carchetypes\u201d), according to Jung, constitute \u201csymbol[s], theme[s], setting[s], or character-type[s]\u201d which recur in \u201cdifferent times and places in myth, literature, folklore, dreams, and rituals so frequently or prominently as to suggest . . . that [they] embod[y] some essential element of \u2018universal\u2019 human experience\u201d (Baldick). \u201cIntertextuality,\u201d a term coined by Kristeva, feminist philosopher, literary critic, and psychoanalyst, \u201cdesignates the various relationships that a given text may have with other texts\u201d (Baldick). These \u201cintertextual relationships\u201d take various forms, including \u201canagram, allusion, adaptation, translation, parody, pastiche, imitation, and other kinds of transformation\u201d (Baldick). It\u2019s a lot to take in, I know. For Kristeva, whether we admire or critique other texts, make relatively brief references to them or incorporate them substantially in our writing, we take part in an active, ongoing \u201cconversation\u201d with the work of others, one that fundamentally renders our work less original than we might believe or want it to be.\r\n

\u201cIntertextuality \u2018designates the various relationships that a given text may have with other texts.\u2019\u201d<\/div>\r\nI recognize that I\u2019m over-simplifying the complex, nuanced theories of Jung and Kristeva; in broad strokes, however, the point to be taken from both is that every text we produce is affected by written texts that we have read, films we have viewed, television series that we have binge-watched. Sometimes, as Kristeva observes, we deliberately set out to engage with those texts that have \u201ccome before.\u201d As frequently, we enter \u201cconversations\u201d with other texts without being fully aware of the fact that we\u2019re doing so: as Twain says, all ideas are \u201cconsciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources\u201d (Twain, my emphasis). Jung\u2019s perspectives on \u201carchetypes\u201d and the \u201ccollective unconscious\u201d invite skepticism, insofar as they disregard the specific ways in which our identities, and hence the pieces we produce, are shaped by our unique, varied, and often unequal experiences of class, gender, ethnicity, and race. Still, it\u2019s tough to disagree with a Jungian literary scholar like Christopher Booker who argues that every story we tell follows one of seven set patterns: \u201cOvercoming the Monster\u201d; \u201cRags to Riches\u201d; \u201cThe Quest\u201d; \u201cVoyage and Return\u201d; \u201cComedy\u201d; \u201cTragedy\u201d; and \u201cRebirth\u201d (Booker). Tellingly, when I went to my bookshelves to put Booker\u2019s argument to the test, trying to find titles which don\u2019t adhere to any of the patterns he identifies, I came up dry. (Give it a whirl, yourself.) It is likely the case that all writing incorporates both originality and mimicry or imitation, to varying degrees. But even if we embrace the idea that all creative writing is original or agree with such folks as Twain, Jung, and Kristeva, who believe that the opposite is true, the result is the same: citation has no place in creative writing. It is either unnecessary (if we view our work as 100% our own) or a practical impossibility (if we recognize the \u201cmillion\u201d influences on what we produce). In the latter case, providing in-text citations and lists of references would be a Herculean task, neither doable nor desirable.\r\n

Appropriation<\/strong><\/h1>\r\nI think that we can agree on this: theories related to originality (or the lack thereof) make sense in the arenas of intellectual conversation and debate. Significant problems, however, can arise when the \u201cabstract\u201d rubs up against \u201creality.\u201d It\u2019s all fine and well to philosophize about intertextuality \u2014 the ways in which myriad texts inform our writing and the impracticality of citing them, but the fact is, living writers own their work. Our writing is our intellectual property, protected by copyright laws (sometimes literary texts become part of the public domain after their authors die; sometimes copyright is retained by estates or family members of the deceased). Because publishing is an industry \u2014 books are big business! \u2014 when revenues and royalties are at stake, the borrowing of someone else\u2019s ideas can get a writer entangled in serious controversy or, worse, a courtroom battle, where \u201cintertextuality\u201d is not guaranteed to succeed as a defense for accusations of plagiarism.\r\n\r\nOwnership of intellectual property, moreover, isn\u2019t only entrenched in law. Take, for example, stories which belong to Indigenous communities via tradition. Even if such ownership isn\u2019t formally protected by the (imposed, colonial, non-Indigenous) legal system, the \u201cborrowing\u201d of sacred legends and myths nonetheless amounts to a form of theft, and a particularly egregious one at that, since it replicates the stealing of Indigenous people\u2019s land.\r\n\r\nSuch theft is referred to as \u201ccultural appropriation\u201d: \u201cthe use of a people\u2019s traditional dress, music, cuisine, knowledge and other aspects of their culture, without their approval, by members of a different culture\u201d (\u201cCultural Appropriation of Indigenous Peoples in Canada\u201d). Instances of cultural appropriation abound in Canada and elsewhere, in the past and the ongoing present, in literary as well as non-literary settings. \u201cFor Indigenous peoples in Canada, cultural appropriation is rooted in colonization and ongoing oppression. Indigenous peoples have seen culturally significant symbols and motifs used in non-Indigenous goods, marketing and art. They have also seen stereotypical images of \u2018Indians\u2019 used in sports logos and the sale of various products\u201d (\u201cCultural Appropriation of Indigenous Peoples in Canada\u201d). Like me, you might be thinking about the Edmonton Eskimos football team (renamed the Edmonton Elks in 2020), the Atlanta Braves (whose fans perform the \u201ctomahawk chop\u201d in support of their baseball team), or the Chicago Blackhawks (the hockey players\u2019 jerseys feature an Indigenous man in feathered headdress). Maybe you are thinking about other groups who have been subjected to similarly damaging acts of appropriation: the racist practices, for example, of blackface or brownface, whereby white people turn the identities of BIPOC (Biracial, Indigenous, People of Colour) into costumes. Or non-black people\u2019s adoption of dreadlocks or cornrow braids, culturally unique and specific to diasporic African communities.\r\n
\u201cAppropriation is the stamp of approval that acknowledges and allows the rape of our women, the destruction of our land, the invisibility\/inaudibility of our stories.\u201d<\/em><\/div>\r\nNo less common or contentious are instances of appropriation in literary circles, which take a variety of forms: white authors writing in the voices of BIPOC characters, incorporating the cultural traditions of oppressed peoples; exploiting (often exoticizing) the experiences of such groups; and\/or, in most extreme cases, making claims to identities not their own, in order (it would seem) to further their careers. In \u201cThe Disappearing Debate; or, How the Discussion of Racism Has Been Taken Over by the Censorship Issue\u201d (a chapter in her 1996 collection of essays titled Frontiers), Marlene Nourbese Philip notes that arguments against appropriation have been construed as support for censorship. As the arguments go, no restrictions should be placed on any writer, filmmaker, or artist. No one\u2019s imagination should be stifled, no voice silenced. Appropriation, however, does just that: it takes self-representation away from those who have endured and continue to experience the pain and trauma of colonialism\u2019s ongoing legacies. Nourbese Philip\u2019s point is that when white readers are urged to stop engaging in acts of appropriation, they aren\u2019t being asked to muzzle themselves; rather, they are called upon to respect and make space for the voices of those who have been silenced for too long.\r\n\r\nAlongside Nourbese Philip, many other writers, speaking from marginalized positions, rightfully identify cultural appropriation as a racist practice that perpetuates colonial power structures. As Dionne Brand writes, in \u201cWho Can Speak for Whom?\u201d (1993), \u201c[t]here can be no question that Canadian culture has marauded the cultural production of First Nations peoples not to speak of their spiritual myths and icons and their land\u201d (18). In \u201cStop Stealing Native Stories\u201d (1997), Lenore Keeshig-Tobias refers to non-Indigenous authors\u2019 interest in Indigenous stories as \u201ccultural theft\u201d and the \u201ctheft of voice\u201d: \u201cThe Canadian cultural industry,\u201d she says, \u201cis stealing \u2014 unconsciously, perhaps, but with the same devastating results \u2014 native stories as surely as the missionaries stole our religion and the politicians stole our land and the residential schools stole our language\u201d: why, she asks, \u201care Canadians so obsessed with native stories anyway? Why the urge to \u2018write Indian\u2019? Have Canadians run out of stories of their own? Or are their renderings just nostalgia for a simpler, more \u2018at one with nature\u2019 stage of human development?\u201d (Keeshig-Tobias). The anger expressed by Nourbese Philip, Brand, and Keeshig-Tobias speaks to the political and personal ramifications of appropriation. Joshua Whitehead, using powerful, pointed language, explains that \u201c[a]ppropriation hurts\u201d:\r\n

it\u2019s the machine that reiterates settler colonial ideologies. Appropriation is the iconoclasm of colonialism; the image that you see when you think of \u2018Indian\u2019 is how you\u2019ve been programmed to see me, feel me, hear me, hate me. Appropriation is the stamp of approval that acknowledges and allows the rape of our women, the destruction of our land, the invisibility\/inaudibility of our stories.<\/p>\r\nClearly, the notion that \u201canything goes\u201d in creative writing \u2014 the assumption that we have the right to write about anything we like, borrowing from whichever sources we choose \u2014 needs to be rigorously questioned, if not summarily dismissed.\r\n

Truth claims<\/strong><\/h1>\r\nJust as debates about cultural appropriation require creative writers to rethink the notion that \u201canything goes,\u201d so too do our responsibilities vis-\u00e0-vis telling the \u201ctruth\u201d challenge assumptions about \u201cartistic freedom.\u201d Are authors at liberty to meddle with what is known, or generally accepted, to be \u201ctrue\u201d? One may well ask, why not? Again, if we have carte blanche to produce work that is new, fresh, and original, surely no one can demand that we be fully faithful to \u201cfacts\u201d \u2014 historical, geographical, scientific, or otherwise.\r\n\r\nIn some cases (not all), contingent on our chosen genres, we absolutely can disregard facts. If, let\u2019s say, I set out to write a fantasy or science fiction novel, or a work of speculative fiction, it\u2019s pretty well understood that the worlds I create and the characters who inhabit them will not be entirely realistic. Perhaps my characters would be able to time travel, defy gravity, shape-shift. I can invent species, catastrophic events, and\/or superheroes with superpowers with no grounding in reality. Similarly, however, if I decide to generate a work categorized as \u201crealism,\u201d then every detail must be accurate \u2014 faithful to \u201creality.\u201d Events or discoveries that actually happened must follow their actual, historical timelines. The Second World War must span the period of 1939 to 1945. A phonograph or photograph can\u2019t appear in my story before either technology came into existence. If my characters live in the 17th century, they likely don\u2019t have flushing toilets, penicillin, or a familiarity with famous figures who were not yet born.\r\n\r\nWhen it comes to minor mistakes or unintended anachronisms, in works of realist fiction, readers might be forgiving, but aficionados of non-fiction are decidedly less flexible. \u201cTruth claims\u201d are the backbone of non-fictional genres. Every detail should be meticulously researched. There\u2019s no room for error. Or is there?\r\n
\u201cTruth claims are the backbone of non-fictional genres. Every detail should be meticulously researched. There\u2019s no room for error. Or is there?\u201d<\/div>\r\nWorks of life writing and creative non-fiction, despite falling under the umbrella of \u201cnon-fiction,\u201d often rely on their authors\u2019 personal perspectives and memories. Consequently, objectivity can be \u2014 in fact, must be \u2014 called into question. \u201cTruth\u201d is in the eye of the beholder. Each time I explain this to my students, I share a simple, yet instructive, autobiographical anecdote. Many years ago, my sister, Jana, and I (we would have been no more than five and seven) got in trouble with our parents: one of us took a hoe out of the garden shed and proceeded to break it by hoeing the lawn and possibly a sidewalk or two. Who broke the hoe? I swear that it was my sister. She, as vehemently, insists that it was me. Even though one of us is wrong, the \u201ctruth\u201d of the incident doesn\u2019t really matter because little is at stake. We playfully argue about our different recollections of who broke the hoe. We\u2019ve been known to give each other a hoe on birthdays or Christmases.\r\n\r\nStill, my anecdote throws into sharp relief whether or not the writer of non-fiction, who draws in part on memory, is always right, or consistently truthful. Doubtless, they aim to be. They certainly should aim to be. Their work, however, is vulnerable to scrutiny by those who may disagree \u2014 who may remember differently \u2014 because memory is notoriously fallible. And, with regard to what is true or not\/perceived to be true or not, the consequences can be far more serious than lighthearted squabbles between siblings about a garden tool.","rendered":"

In the next few paragraphs (again, I\u2019m being as transparent as possible), I plan to zero in on three broad \u2018debates\u2019 with which creative writers should \u2014 indeed, I think, must \u2014 be familiar. These have to do with whether or not originality is ever (really, truly, completely) attainable; questions about our right to write about anything we choose; and the vexed business of \u201ctelling the truth\u201d (How is \u2018truth\u2019 defined? Who decides? What are the possible repercussions when we play \u201cfast and loose\u201d with it?).<\/p>\n

Before I address the three \u2018debates,\u2019 though, it\u2019s important to consider the commonly held (and not entirely unreasonable) assumption that creative writers should never have to worry about making mistakes. One could say that we\u2019re supposed to follow rules to do with grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Depending on our chosen forms, we\u2019re also expected to follow certain established conventions. If I\u2019m a poet who sets out to write a sonnet, or a sestina, or a haiku, for instance, I commit to adhering to the regulations that govern my chosen genre. As a playwright, the work that I produce is expected to include acts and scenes.<\/p>\n

Oh, but creative writing is a discipline like no other. Our \u2018rules\u2019 can be bent, if not broken. We\u2019re allowed, if not encouraged, to be experimental. no capital letters? no problem. One-word sentences? Fine. Good. A novel in verse, a book-length poem, or a play without acts or scenes? All of these radical moves are entirely acceptable. Is it not true that \u2018artistic license\u2019 makes it possible for us to do whatever we please? \u201cAnything goes,\u201d in creative writing, because telling a creative writer what they can or can\u2019t do is tantamount to censorship. We don\u2019t have to follow a style guide (MLA, for example, APA, the Chicago Manual) to cite our sources. Except for practitioners of non-fiction (those who write memoirs, autobiographies, biographies, travelogues, and so on), creative writers are not expected or required to acknowledge their sources. When was the last time you read a poem or a play, a short story, novella, or novel that included footnotes or end-notes, in-text citations, or lists of references? Answer: never. The stories, poems, and plays that we produce are assumed to be entirely our own. New, fresh, and original. That, at least, is one, fairly widespread, perspective.<\/p>\n

Intertextuality<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Some, however, adopt a polar opposite philosophy, arguing that virtually nothing we write can be described as new, fresh, or original.<\/p>\n

Here, for example, I think about a passage from a private letter, sent by Mark Twain to Helen Keller (two very famous American writers) in 1903, some years after Keller was charged with plagiarism (she was eventually acquitted). \u201cAll ideas are second-hand,\u201d wrote Twain, in defense of his friend. The expanded extract from Twain\u2019s letter reads as follows:<\/p>\n

Oh, dear me, how unspeakably funny and owlishly idiotic and grotesque was that \u2018plagiarism\u2019 farce! As if there was much of anything in any human utterance, oral or written, except plagiarism! The kernel, the soul \u2014 let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of\u00a0all\u00a0human utterances \u2014 is plagiarism. For substantially all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily used by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral calibre and his temperament, and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing. When a great orator makes a great speech you are listening to ten centuries and ten thousand men \u2014 but we call it\u00a0his\u00a0speech, and really some exceedingly small portion of it\u00a0is\u00a0his. But not enough to signify.<\/p>\n

In a nutshell, Twain writes, \u201cninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure and simple\u201d.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t say that I disagree. I doubt that Carl Jung or Julia Kristeva would disagree either, two thinkers for whom, like Twain, originality is a myth. If you\u2019ve encountered, before, the terms \u201carchetype\u201d (or \u201carchetypal\u201d) and \u201cintertextuality\u201d (or \u201cintertext\u201d), then you\u2019re already acquainted with Jung and Kristeva. Jung (1875-1961), psychologist, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst, came up with the term \u201carchetype\u201d in the early 20th century as part of his work on the \u201ccollective unconscious\u201d \u2014 the notion, essentially, that certain \u201cresidues of ancestral memory\u201d are shared by all people in every culture (Baldick, 2015). These \u201cresidues\u201d (\u201carchetypes\u201d), according to Jung, constitute \u201csymbol[s], theme[s], setting[s], or character-type[s]\u201d which recur in \u201cdifferent times and places in myth, literature, folklore, dreams, and rituals so frequently or prominently as to suggest . . . that [they] embod[y] some essential element of \u2018universal\u2019 human experience\u201d (Baldick). \u201cIntertextuality,\u201d a term coined by Kristeva, feminist philosopher, literary critic, and psychoanalyst, \u201cdesignates the various relationships that a given text may have with other texts\u201d (Baldick). These \u201cintertextual relationships\u201d take various forms, including \u201canagram, allusion, adaptation, translation, parody, pastiche, imitation, and other kinds of transformation\u201d (Baldick). It\u2019s a lot to take in, I know. For Kristeva, whether we admire or critique other texts, make relatively brief references to them or incorporate them substantially in our writing, we take part in an active, ongoing \u201cconversation\u201d with the work of others, one that fundamentally renders our work less original than we might believe or want it to be.<\/p>\n

\u201cIntertextuality \u2018designates the various relationships that a given text may have with other texts.\u2019\u201d<\/div>\n

I recognize that I\u2019m over-simplifying the complex, nuanced theories of Jung and Kristeva; in broad strokes, however, the point to be taken from both is that every text we produce is affected by written texts that we have read, films we have viewed, television series that we have binge-watched. Sometimes, as Kristeva observes, we deliberately set out to engage with those texts that have \u201ccome before.\u201d As frequently, we enter \u201cconversations\u201d with other texts without being fully aware of the fact that we\u2019re doing so: as Twain says, all ideas are \u201cconsciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources\u201d (Twain, my emphasis). Jung\u2019s perspectives on \u201carchetypes\u201d and the \u201ccollective unconscious\u201d invite skepticism, insofar as they disregard the specific ways in which our identities, and hence the pieces we produce, are shaped by our unique, varied, and often unequal experiences of class, gender, ethnicity, and race. Still, it\u2019s tough to disagree with a Jungian literary scholar like Christopher Booker who argues that every story we tell follows one of seven set patterns: \u201cOvercoming the Monster\u201d; \u201cRags to Riches\u201d; \u201cThe Quest\u201d; \u201cVoyage and Return\u201d; \u201cComedy\u201d; \u201cTragedy\u201d; and \u201cRebirth\u201d (Booker). Tellingly, when I went to my bookshelves to put Booker\u2019s argument to the test, trying to find titles which don\u2019t adhere to any of the patterns he identifies, I came up dry. (Give it a whirl, yourself.) It is likely the case that all writing incorporates both originality and mimicry or imitation, to varying degrees. But even if we embrace the idea that all creative writing is original or agree with such folks as Twain, Jung, and Kristeva, who believe that the opposite is true, the result is the same: citation has no place in creative writing. It is either unnecessary (if we view our work as 100% our own) or a practical impossibility (if we recognize the \u201cmillion\u201d influences on what we produce). In the latter case, providing in-text citations and lists of references would be a Herculean task, neither doable nor desirable.<\/p>\n

Appropriation<\/strong><\/h1>\n

I think that we can agree on this: theories related to originality (or the lack thereof) make sense in the arenas of intellectual conversation and debate. Significant problems, however, can arise when the \u201cabstract\u201d rubs up against \u201creality.\u201d It\u2019s all fine and well to philosophize about intertextuality \u2014 the ways in which myriad texts inform our writing and the impracticality of citing them, but the fact is, living writers own their work. Our writing is our intellectual property, protected by copyright laws (sometimes literary texts become part of the public domain after their authors die; sometimes copyright is retained by estates or family members of the deceased). Because publishing is an industry \u2014 books are big business! \u2014 when revenues and royalties are at stake, the borrowing of someone else\u2019s ideas can get a writer entangled in serious controversy or, worse, a courtroom battle, where \u201cintertextuality\u201d is not guaranteed to succeed as a defense for accusations of plagiarism.<\/p>\n

Ownership of intellectual property, moreover, isn\u2019t only entrenched in law. Take, for example, stories which belong to Indigenous communities via tradition. Even if such ownership isn\u2019t formally protected by the (imposed, colonial, non-Indigenous) legal system, the \u201cborrowing\u201d of sacred legends and myths nonetheless amounts to a form of theft, and a particularly egregious one at that, since it replicates the stealing of Indigenous people\u2019s land.<\/p>\n

Such theft is referred to as \u201ccultural appropriation\u201d: \u201cthe use of a people\u2019s traditional dress, music, cuisine, knowledge and other aspects of their culture, without their approval, by members of a different culture\u201d (\u201cCultural Appropriation of Indigenous Peoples in Canada\u201d). Instances of cultural appropriation abound in Canada and elsewhere, in the past and the ongoing present, in literary as well as non-literary settings. \u201cFor Indigenous peoples in Canada, cultural appropriation is rooted in colonization and ongoing oppression. Indigenous peoples have seen culturally significant symbols and motifs used in non-Indigenous goods, marketing and art. They have also seen stereotypical images of \u2018Indians\u2019 used in sports logos and the sale of various products\u201d (\u201cCultural Appropriation of Indigenous Peoples in Canada\u201d). Like me, you might be thinking about the Edmonton Eskimos football team (renamed the Edmonton Elks in 2020), the Atlanta Braves (whose fans perform the \u201ctomahawk chop\u201d in support of their baseball team), or the Chicago Blackhawks (the hockey players\u2019 jerseys feature an Indigenous man in feathered headdress). Maybe you are thinking about other groups who have been subjected to similarly damaging acts of appropriation: the racist practices, for example, of blackface or brownface, whereby white people turn the identities of BIPOC (Biracial, Indigenous, People of Colour) into costumes. Or non-black people\u2019s adoption of dreadlocks or cornrow braids, culturally unique and specific to diasporic African communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cAppropriation is the stamp of approval that acknowledges and allows the rape of our women, the destruction of our land, the invisibility\/inaudibility of our stories.\u201d<\/em><\/div>\n

No less common or contentious are instances of appropriation in literary circles, which take a variety of forms: white authors writing in the voices of BIPOC characters, incorporating the cultural traditions of oppressed peoples; exploiting (often exoticizing) the experiences of such groups; and\/or, in most extreme cases, making claims to identities not their own, in order (it would seem) to further their careers. In \u201cThe Disappearing Debate; or, How the Discussion of Racism Has Been Taken Over by the Censorship Issue\u201d (a chapter in her 1996 collection of essays titled Frontiers), Marlene Nourbese Philip notes that arguments against appropriation have been construed as support for censorship. As the arguments go, no restrictions should be placed on any writer, filmmaker, or artist. No one\u2019s imagination should be stifled, no voice silenced. Appropriation, however, does just that: it takes self-representation away from those who have endured and continue to experience the pain and trauma of colonialism\u2019s ongoing legacies. Nourbese Philip\u2019s point is that when white readers are urged to stop engaging in acts of appropriation, they aren\u2019t being asked to muzzle themselves; rather, they are called upon to respect and make space for the voices of those who have been silenced for too long.<\/p>\n

Alongside Nourbese Philip, many other writers, speaking from marginalized positions, rightfully identify cultural appropriation as a racist practice that perpetuates colonial power structures. As Dionne Brand writes, in \u201cWho Can Speak for Whom?\u201d (1993), \u201c[t]here can be no question that Canadian culture has marauded the cultural production of First Nations peoples not to speak of their spiritual myths and icons and their land\u201d (18). In \u201cStop Stealing Native Stories\u201d (1997), Lenore Keeshig-Tobias refers to non-Indigenous authors\u2019 interest in Indigenous stories as \u201ccultural theft\u201d and the \u201ctheft of voice\u201d: \u201cThe Canadian cultural industry,\u201d she says, \u201cis stealing \u2014 unconsciously, perhaps, but with the same devastating results \u2014 native stories as surely as the missionaries stole our religion and the politicians stole our land and the residential schools stole our language\u201d: why, she asks, \u201care Canadians so obsessed with native stories anyway? Why the urge to \u2018write Indian\u2019? Have Canadians run out of stories of their own? Or are their renderings just nostalgia for a simpler, more \u2018at one with nature\u2019 stage of human development?\u201d (Keeshig-Tobias). The anger expressed by Nourbese Philip, Brand, and Keeshig-Tobias speaks to the political and personal ramifications of appropriation. Joshua Whitehead, using powerful, pointed language, explains that \u201c[a]ppropriation hurts\u201d:<\/p>\n

it\u2019s the machine that reiterates settler colonial ideologies. Appropriation is the iconoclasm of colonialism; the image that you see when you think of \u2018Indian\u2019 is how you\u2019ve been programmed to see me, feel me, hear me, hate me. Appropriation is the stamp of approval that acknowledges and allows the rape of our women, the destruction of our land, the invisibility\/inaudibility of our stories.<\/p>\n

Clearly, the notion that \u201canything goes\u201d in creative writing \u2014 the assumption that we have the right to write about anything we like, borrowing from whichever sources we choose \u2014 needs to be rigorously questioned, if not summarily dismissed.<\/p>\n

Truth claims<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Just as debates about cultural appropriation require creative writers to rethink the notion that \u201canything goes,\u201d so too do our responsibilities vis-\u00e0-vis telling the \u201ctruth\u201d challenge assumptions about \u201cartistic freedom.\u201d Are authors at liberty to meddle with what is known, or generally accepted, to be \u201ctrue\u201d? One may well ask, why not? Again, if we have carte blanche to produce work that is new, fresh, and original, surely no one can demand that we be fully faithful to \u201cfacts\u201d \u2014 historical, geographical, scientific, or otherwise.<\/p>\n

In some cases (not all), contingent on our chosen genres, we absolutely can disregard facts. If, let\u2019s say, I set out to write a fantasy or science fiction novel, or a work of speculative fiction, it\u2019s pretty well understood that the worlds I create and the characters who inhabit them will not be entirely realistic. Perhaps my characters would be able to time travel, defy gravity, shape-shift. I can invent species, catastrophic events, and\/or superheroes with superpowers with no grounding in reality. Similarly, however, if I decide to generate a work categorized as \u201crealism,\u201d then every detail must be accurate \u2014 faithful to \u201creality.\u201d Events or discoveries that actually happened must follow their actual, historical timelines. The Second World War must span the period of 1939 to 1945. A phonograph or photograph can\u2019t appear in my story before either technology came into existence. If my characters live in the 17th century, they likely don\u2019t have flushing toilets, penicillin, or a familiarity with famous figures who were not yet born.<\/p>\n

When it comes to minor mistakes or unintended anachronisms, in works of realist fiction, readers might be forgiving, but aficionados of non-fiction are decidedly less flexible. \u201cTruth claims\u201d are the backbone of non-fictional genres. Every detail should be meticulously researched. There\u2019s no room for error. Or is there?<\/p>\n

\u201cTruth claims are the backbone of non-fictional genres. Every detail should be meticulously researched. There\u2019s no room for error. Or is there?\u201d<\/div>\n

Works of life writing and creative non-fiction, despite falling under the umbrella of \u201cnon-fiction,\u201d often rely on their authors\u2019 personal perspectives and memories. Consequently, objectivity can be \u2014 in fact, must be \u2014 called into question. \u201cTruth\u201d is in the eye of the beholder. Each time I explain this to my students, I share a simple, yet instructive, autobiographical anecdote. Many years ago, my sister, Jana, and I (we would have been no more than five and seven) got in trouble with our parents: one of us took a hoe out of the garden shed and proceeded to break it by hoeing the lawn and possibly a sidewalk or two. Who broke the hoe? I swear that it was my sister. She, as vehemently, insists that it was me. Even though one of us is wrong, the \u201ctruth\u201d of the incident doesn\u2019t really matter because little is at stake. We playfully argue about our different recollections of who broke the hoe. We\u2019ve been known to give each other a hoe on birthdays or Christmases.<\/p>\n

Still, my anecdote throws into sharp relief whether or not the writer of non-fiction, who draws in part on memory, is always right, or consistently truthful. Doubtless, they aim to be. They certainly should aim to be. Their work, however, is vulnerable to scrutiny by those who may disagree \u2014 who may remember differently \u2014 because memory is notoriously fallible. And, with regard to what is true or not\/perceived to be true or not, the consequences can be far more serious than lighthearted squabbles between siblings about a garden tool.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1782,"menu_order":1,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":["lisa-grekul"],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[70],"license":[],"class_list":["post-206","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","contributor-lisa-grekul"],"part":200,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/ubcacademicintegrity\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/ubcacademicintegrity\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/ubcacademicintegrity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/ubcacademicintegrity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1782"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/ubcacademicintegrity\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":529,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/ubcacademicintegrity\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/206\/revisions\/529"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/ubcacademicintegrity\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/200"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/ubcacademicintegrity\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/206\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/ubcacademicintegrity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/ubcacademicintegrity\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=206"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/ubcacademicintegrity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=206"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/ubcacademicintegrity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}