Center for Law, Technology and Arts

Con/texts of Invention

A Working Conference of the Society for Critical Exchange
April 20-23, 2006
Case Western Reserve University * Cleveland, Ohio

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

Listen to PODCASTS of selected sessions:

1. LIFE, DEATH AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Chair and comments: Mary Poovey, English, New York U

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

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

Racing Patents/Patenting Race: An Emerging Political Geography of Intellectual Property in Biomedicine
Jonathan Kahn, Law, Hamline U

2. AUTHORS AND OTHERS
Chair and comments: James Leach, Social Anthropology, Cambridge U

An Economic Model of Sampling, Cover Versions, and Musical Collage
Peter DiCola, Economics, U of Michigan

EMACS, grep, and UNIX: Authorship, Invention and Translation in Software
Christopher Kelty, Anthropology, Rice U

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

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

3. ENVISIONING INVENTION
Chair and comments: Mark Rose, English, U of California, Santa Barbara

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

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

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

4. NETWORKS OF INVENTION
Chair and comments: Lionel Bently, Law, Cambridge U

The Ingenuity of Film Genre
Jane Gaines, Literature, Duke U

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

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

5. REPORTS OF THE AUTHOR'S DEATH HAVE BEEN GREATLY EXAGGERATED: DEBATING AN AGENDA FOR RESEARCH AND ACTION

Martha Woodmansee, English and Law, Case Western Reserve U
Peter Jaszi, Law, American U
Mario Biagioli, History of Science, Harvard U
Adrian Johns, History of Science, U of Chicago