On plagiarism

[meep]

No, not really about whether Claudine Gay "really" plagiarized or whether she should be booted from this/that/the other, but my experience w/ plagiarism over the years, as someone who has been plagiarized from and as a teacher.

Let's get the teacher bit sorted with first - I taught a writing class at UConn, to actuarial science majors. It was

Comments

[selenite]

I'd missed the Inferno essay before. Thanks for the link, that was a good read.

And yes, I've read Inferno--once. Like Larry and Jerry, I don't want to spend longer there than I have to.

[meep]

So, I really like the Divine Comedy, but for weird reasons, perhaps.

There's a lot of math and cosmology, etc. in there.

I've mentioned it before - I want to actually write a modern Purgatorio (but not a sci-fi version, per se... I'm not a sci fi author, for one). I have a concept - Verdi in Purgatory - and some other ideas around it. The distinction between me & Niven/Pournelle is that I'm actually Catholic, believe in Purgatory, and have an idea of what is going on in Dante's Purgatorio and the big distinction between Inferno & Purgatorio. Niven & Pournelle did obliterate it in their version, but they're not Dante.

And the really funny thing is, while I'm unlikely to write a novel (I'm more of a nonfiction person), I've got an idea of adapting Purgatorio for a business article (-snort-). I've been threatening to do this to a particular editor for years. I've managed to work in sumo, Chaucer, Homer, Julia Child, and Winston Churchill's painting hobby so far.

[selenite]

Okay, I'd read that.