BUSTED! Plagiarists, Fakers & Literary Hoaxes

[chonies]

Oh no! Jane Goodall and her co-author have been accused of plagiarism by non-attribution and crummy paraphrasing. link.

[Carolinian]

Here's a longish article about some academic sock-puppetry. I'm impressed with the detective work involved.

[chonies]

A librarian friend sent that to me yesterday, and I agree! The topic is kind of interesting in an alt-history sort of way, and the sleuthing is fairly gripping.

However, I'm really starting to wonder about Kakutani's reviews. She also reviewed Love and Consequences in glowing terms. I understand her job is to review what's in front of her, but srsly? Two big fakeouts? I would be dying of embarrassment nowish.

[chiqui]

Movie version of Harry Potter fanfic plagiarizer Cassandra Clare's "The Mortal Instruments" to be released in August. With Jonathan Rhys Meyers no less.

Apparantly there ain't no justice.

[Smilla]

Apparantly there ain't no justice.

You can say that again. Cassandra Clare's actions make me ill.

[GoldenFleece]

A movie like that being released in August isn't a great sign of the studio's faith in it. It sounds like a total flop waiting to happen TBH.

Maybe Cassandra Claire's plagiarism hasn't hurt her was because many people think of all fanfiction as plagiarism anyway, so what difference does it make that she cribbed scenes from Buffy for her stories about characters she also didn't come up with? There was more to her antics than that but it was in-fandom stuff that I think a lot of people outside of that world tend not to take seriously.

[chonies]

Not quite plagiarism, but this Washington Post article about Reza Aslan has detected blood in the water and seems bent on a kill.

Some of the stuff they cover is kind of old news: for example, he teaches creative writing, not religious studies. I get uncomfortable during discussions of credential measuring, but I'll let this one go. However, the article covers a weird kind of slippery personality, and I find myself disappointed, especially because he mischaracterized himself. There's no shame in a PhD in sociology--for the love of Marcel Mauss, own it! Don't make it easy for people to discredit you by misrepresenting your credentials.

Worse, they bring to light some really close parallels to similar works. Not plagiarism, but discomfort.

I used to like Reza Aslan, as I thought his writing was engaging and interesting, and he gave great interviews, but now I'm just uggghhh.

[Mutagen]

Reza Aslan's an extremely skilled writer and speaker, and I really enjoyed his book about Islam. I'll admit that I went through a period of stanning for him. But at some point I was just turned off by him. I can't put my finger on the exact thing that changed my opinion, but I'm not 100% surprised to see him pop up on this thread. I think it's sad because he really is a smart guy.

[chonies]

High five on the nerd stanning!

And ITA. There's just something kind of...not quite crazy-eye, but I'm not sure what it is. Maybe trying too hard? By way of clumsy metaphor, I was honestly shocked to read that he had married a woman because when he was doing media ca. the No God But God era, I thought he was gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that, obviously, but what I'm trying to say is that one impression I have of him is that he is not who he seems to be. And the WaPo article focused on that theme, but in a completely more academic way.

[Deleted]

Wait, is anyone actually trying to discredit him on the basis of his doctorate in Sociology? Seriously? The author of this piece is aware that there are sub-specialties within the discipline, right? I mean, there's a sociology of religion scholar within my own department. Given Aslan's focus, I'd almost expect a Sociology degree more than I would a Religious Studies degree anyway!