Cultures of Forgery

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.