Who - or what - makes a text? What does it mean to be an "author"? How are new tools like ChatGPT and Claude altering our answers to these questions? This course traces debates about authorship from ancient Greece to today's world of large language models, considering how changing cultural frameworks, material conditions and technologies of composition have produced widely varying understandings of literary originality, ownership and authority. By exploring a range of influential but elusive ancient authors and author-figures - including Homer, Sappho, Plato and Lucian - alongside critical theory and contemporary practice, we will unpack how the notion of the author has always been more unstable than it might appear. We will ask why it matters to us to identify who wrote something and what is at stake when these attributions fail. We will consider how texts from the ancient world can shed light on the significance of generative AI as a new mode of "writing," and what this modern technology can reveal about longstanding tensions surrounding textual production and reception.
3-5 units · Letter or Credit/No Credit
Who - or what - makes a text? What does it mean to be an "author"? How are new tools like ChatGPT and Claude altering our answers to these questions? This course traces debates about authorship from ancient Greece to today's world of large language models, considering how changing cultural frameworks, material conditions and technologies of composition have produced widely varying understandings of literary originality, ownership and authority. By exploring a range of influential but elusive ancient authors and author-figures - including Homer, Sappho, Plato and Lucian - alongside critical theory and contemporary practice, we will unpack how the notion of the author has always been more unstable than it might appear. We will ask why it matters to us to identify who wrote something and what is at stake when these attributions fail. We will consider how texts from the ancient world can shed light on the significance of generative AI as a new mode of "writing," and what this modern technology can reveal about longstanding tensions surrounding textual production and reception.
Offered in Spring 2027 at Stanford University.