Cultures of Forgery

This collection of 11 essays by leading literary studies and cultural studies scholars examines the double meaning of the word "forge" - to create or to form, on the one hand, and to make falsely, on the other.

This collection of eleven essays by leading literary studies and cultural studies scholars examines the double meaning of the word "forge"-to create or to form, on the one hand, and to make falsely, on the other. These notable scholars take on a broad range of topics, including the falsified Hitler diaries, the creation of national identity in Bohemia, and Jean-Etienne Liotard's fraudulent "Turkish" identity. Each essay asks how forgery-at once the work of a criminal and a "master"-has shaped modern culture and challenged our understandings of authorship and value. Julie Buckler, Derek Pearsall, Sarolta Takacs, Alfred Thomas, Brad Epps, Reinhold Brinkmann, Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, John Malmstad, Judith Ryan, Susan Suleiman, Eric Rentschler

List of Figures
Preface
PART ONE: Forging Nations
1. Forging Truth in Medieval England
2. Forging a Past: The Sybilline Books and the Making of Rome
3. Forging Czechs: The Reinvention of National Identity in Bohemian Lands
4. Eclectic Fabrication: St. Petersburg and the Problem of Imperial Architectural Style
5. Forging Catalonia, or The Blankness of Dali PART TWO: Forging Selves
6. The Art of Forging Music and Musicians
7. Jean-Etienne Liotard's Envelopes of Self
8. Wrestling with Representation: Reforging Images of the Artist in the Russian Avant-garde
9. After the "Death of the Author": The Fabrication of Helen Demidenko
10. Facts and Writing: Problems of Memory in Recent Memoirs
11. The Fascination of a Fake: The Hitler Diaries