Brad Vice
Encyclopedia
Brad Vice is a fiction
writer whose short story
collection, The Bear Bryant
Funeral Train, won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction
from the University of Georgia Press
. When the Press discovered that one of the stories in the collection was based on a section of the 1934 book Stars Fell on Alabama by Carl Carmer
, the Press accused Vice of plagiarism
and made the controversial decision to revoke his prize and destroy all copies of the book. While some agreed that Vice had plagiarized the story, a number of commentators and editors
protested this decision, saying that Vice made no attempt to hide what he did and was merely adapting a classic literary work to a new age via a postmodern apparatus. The collection has since been re-issued, in a slightly revised format.
in 1973 and raised in Northport, Alabama
. Vice's father, Leon Vice, worked as a high school history teacher and a farmer while his mother Dorothy worked as a radiology technician.
According to Vice, he spent his summers working on his grandparents’ cattle farm and reading. In December 1994, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts
from the University of Alabama
; he subsequently earned a Master's degree
from the University of Tennessee
and a Doctor of Philosophy
from the University of Cincinnati
. He worked briefly as an assistant professor of the English language
at Arkansas Tech University
before joining Mississippi State University
as an assistant professor. Vice is currently serving as an instructor at the University of West Bohemia
, in Pilsen, in the Czech Republic
. He serves as faculty advisor to Sigma Tau Delta
, the international English honor society.
and has appeared in many magazines and journals, including The Atlantic Monthly
, The Georgia Review
, The Southern Review, The Greensboro Review
, and Shenandoah
. His short story "Mojo Farmer" was selected for inclusion in the 1997 edition of New Stories From the South, while his story "Report from Junction" was included in the anthology's 2003 edition. His story "Chickensnake" was selected for the 2003 edition of Best New American Voices.
Vice has also published articles and interviews in publications such as Writers' Digest, The Novel and Short Story Writers' Market, and The Guide to Literary Agents. His fiction reviews have been published in a number of magazines and newspapers.
In late 2004 Vice's short story collection, The Bear Bryant Funeral Train, won the Flannery O'Connor Short Fiction Award from the University of Georgia
Press. The Press published the collection in late 2005. The collection received positive reviews from Booklist
and other magazines and from newspapers such as San Francisco Chronicle
.
noticed that one of the stories bore a similarity to a section of the classic 1934 nonfiction book, Stars Fell on Alabama by Carl Carmer. Vice's 20-page short story, "Tuscaloosa Knights," used the background, setting and some dialogue
from Carmer's book, specifically a four-page section of the chapter "Tuscaloosa Nights," which describes a 1930s Ku Klux Klan
rally in that city. The library adviser notified the University of Georgia Press, which had published Vice's book.
Vice said that he was not copying Carmer's original section but wrote the story in homage
to Carmer's book. He said he used sections of Carmer's description and dialogue to add "authority to my story with the visual details of Carmer's historical reckoning. I made a terrible error in judgment by omitting to acknowledge this due to my ignorance concerning the principles of fair use
." Even though The Bear Bryant Funeral Train failed to cite Carmer's book, Vice's doctoral dissertation (which was an earlier draft of the book) did contain an epigraph from Carmer's book at the start of the story in question. Vice has stated that he was advised to remove this and other epigraphs before publication "to make the book look more conventional."
Despite this apology and explanation, the University of Georgia Press revoked Vice's prize and destroyed all copies of the book.
While many literary commentators and editors agreed that Vice had made a mistake in failing to cite the original source of the story, there was also a feeling that the University of Georgia Press overreacted to the situation. Jake Adam York, a Southern United States
poet and editor of the Alabama literary journal Thicket, noted that Vice had allowed his short story and the four-page section of Carmer's original book to be published side by side in Thicket. To York, this action by Vice "implicitly acknowledges the relationship (and) allows the evidence to be made public." York added that doing this allowed the readers to enter the "intertextual space in which (Vice) has worked" and that what Vice was doing with his story was allusion
, not plagiarism
. York also stated that, according to his own analysis of Vice's story and Carmer's source material, Vice did not break copyright law.
Other commentators and editors who supported Vice stated that Vice was following in a long line of authors adapting older literary works for modern times. Examples of this include Alice Randall
's The Wind Done Gone
(based on Gone with the Wind
), Suzan-Lori Parks
' Getting Mother's Body and Graham Swift
's Last Orders (both updated versions of William Faulkner
’s As I Lay Dying), and Tom Stoppard
's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
(which plays off of Hamlet
). Others stated that Vice' publisher acted in "haste" and questioned why the book had to be destroyed for what was probably not a copyright violation or a case of plagiarism.
Still, there were commentators who felt that Vice was indeed guilty of plagiarism and received the punishment he deserved. These commentators tended to state that since Vice was a professor of English, he should have known what he was doing.
After Vice's book was destroyed, remaining used copies on Amazon.com
and other booksellers were selling for hundreds of dollars.
Aside from being reedited from an earlier version of the author's manuscript, the new edition also differs from the first in that it contains an additional story, "Demopolis;" an introduction by Vice in which he explains his literary intentions; and essays from other writers and professors which provide context for both the postmodern approach employed by Vice and the controversy surrounding the initial publication.
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
writer whose short story
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
collection, The Bear Bryant
Bear Bryant
Paul William "Bear" Bryant was an American college football player and coach. He was best known as the longtime head coach of the University of Alabama football team. During his 25-year tenure as Alabama's head coach, he amassed six national championships and thirteen conference championships...
Funeral Train, won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction
Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction
The Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction is an annual prize awarded by the University of Georgia Press named in honor of the American short story writer and novelist Flannery O'Connor....
from the University of Georgia Press
University of Georgia Press
The University of Georgia Press or UGA Press is a publishing house and is a member of the Association of American University Presses.Founded in 1938, the UGA Press is a division of the University of Georgia and is located on the campus in Athens, Georgia, USA...
. When the Press discovered that one of the stories in the collection was based on a section of the 1934 book Stars Fell on Alabama by Carl Carmer
Carl Carmer
Carl Lamson Carmer was an author of nonfiction books, memoirs, and novels, many of which focused on Americana such as myths, folklore, and tales. His most famous book, Stars Fell on Alabama, was an autobiographical story of the time he spent living in Alabama...
, the Press accused Vice of plagiarism
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
and made the controversial decision to revoke his prize and destroy all copies of the book. While some agreed that Vice had plagiarized the story, a number of commentators and editors
Editing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
protested this decision, saying that Vice made no attempt to hide what he did and was merely adapting a classic literary work to a new age via a postmodern apparatus. The collection has since been re-issued, in a slightly revised format.
Biography
Vice was born in Tuscaloosa, AlabamaTuscaloosa, Alabama
Tuscaloosa is a city in and the seat of Tuscaloosa County in west central Alabama . Located on the Black Warrior River, it is the fifth-largest city in Alabama, with a population of 90,468 in 2010...
in 1973 and raised in Northport, Alabama
Northport, Alabama
Northport is a city in Tuscaloosa County in the west central part of the U.S. state of Alabama. Located on the Black Warrior River across from downtown Tuscaloosa, it is currently the 24th largest city in Alabama with an estimated population of 23,442 in 2009...
. Vice's father, Leon Vice, worked as a high school history teacher and a farmer while his mother Dorothy worked as a radiology technician.
According to Vice, he spent his summers working on his grandparents’ cattle farm and reading. In December 1994, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
from the University of Alabama
University of Alabama
The University of Alabama is a public coeducational university located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States....
; he subsequently earned a Master's degree
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
from the University of Tennessee
University of Tennessee
The University of Tennessee is a public land-grant university headquartered at Knoxville, Tennessee, United States...
and a Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
from the University of Cincinnati
University of Cincinnati
The University of Cincinnati is a comprehensive public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio, and a part of the University System of Ohio....
. He worked briefly as an assistant professor of the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
at Arkansas Tech University
Arkansas Tech University
Arkansas Tech University is a comprehensive regional institution located in Russellville, Arkansas, United States. The university offers programs at both baccalaureate and graduate levels in a range of fields. As of 2004, the University also operates a small satellite campus in the town of Ozark...
before joining Mississippi State University
Mississippi State University
The Mississippi State University of Agriculture and Applied Science commonly known as Mississippi State University is a land-grant university located in Oktibbeha County, Mississippi, United States, partially in the town of Starkville and partially in an unincorporated area...
as an assistant professor. Vice is currently serving as an instructor at the University of West Bohemia
University of West Bohemia
The University of West Bohemia is a university in Pilsen, Czech Republic. It was founded in 1991 and consists of seven faculties.-Organization:The faculties are the basic units of the university. The units implement their own academic programs...
, in Pilsen, in the Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
. He serves as faculty advisor to Sigma Tau Delta
Sigma Tau Delta
Sigma Tau Delta is an international collegiate honor society for students of English. It presently has over 800 active chapters located in Europe, the Caribbean, the United States, and 1 chapter in the Middle East , with more than 1,000 faculty sponsors...
, the international English honor society.
Writing
Vice's fiction falls within the genre of southern literatureSouthern literature
Southern literature is defined as American literature about the Southern United States or by writers from this region...
and has appeared in many magazines and journals, including The Atlantic Monthly
The Atlantic Monthly
The Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...
, The Georgia Review
The Georgia Review
The Georgia Review is an award-winning, nationally respected literary journal founded in 1947 that includes poetry, art, fiction, essays and reviews. It won the National Magazine Award for Fiction in 1986 and the National Magazine Award for Essay in 2007...
, The Southern Review, The Greensboro Review
The Greensboro Review
The Greensboro Review is a literary magazine, based at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Greensboro, North Carolina. It publishes fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction on a quarterly basis. Work from the journal is featured in such anthologies as New Stories from the South, the...
, and Shenandoah
Shenandoah (magazine)
Shenandoah: The Washington and Lee Review is a major literary magazine published by Washington and Lee University.- History :Originally a student-run quarterly, Shenandoah has evolved into a triannual literary journal edited by author R. T...
. His short story "Mojo Farmer" was selected for inclusion in the 1997 edition of New Stories From the South, while his story "Report from Junction" was included in the anthology's 2003 edition. His story "Chickensnake" was selected for the 2003 edition of Best New American Voices.
Vice has also published articles and interviews in publications such as Writers' Digest, The Novel and Short Story Writers' Market, and The Guide to Literary Agents. His fiction reviews have been published in a number of magazines and newspapers.
In late 2004 Vice's short story collection, The Bear Bryant Funeral Train, won the Flannery O'Connor Short Fiction Award from the University of Georgia
University of Georgia
The University of Georgia is a public research university located in Athens, Georgia, United States. Founded in 1785, it is the oldest and largest of the state's institutions of higher learning and is one of multiple schools to claim the title of the oldest public university in the United States...
Press. The Press published the collection in late 2005. The collection received positive reviews from Booklist
Booklist
Booklist is a publication of the American Library Association that provides critical reviews of books and audiovisual materials for all ages. It is geared toward libraries and booksellers and is available in print or online...
and other magazines and from newspapers such as San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
.
Controversy over alleged plagiarism
Shortly after Vice's short story collection The Bear Bryant Funeral Train was published, a readers' adviser to the Tuscaloosa Public Library in AlabamaAlabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
noticed that one of the stories bore a similarity to a section of the classic 1934 nonfiction book, Stars Fell on Alabama by Carl Carmer. Vice's 20-page short story, "Tuscaloosa Knights," used the background, setting and some dialogue
Dialogue
Dialogue is a literary and theatrical form consisting of a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people....
from Carmer's book, specifically a four-page section of the chapter "Tuscaloosa Nights," which describes a 1930s Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
rally in that city. The library adviser notified the University of Georgia Press, which had published Vice's book.
Vice said that he was not copying Carmer's original section but wrote the story in homage
Homage
Homage is a show or demonstration of respect or dedication to someone or something, sometimes by simple declaration but often by some more oblique reference, artistic or poetic....
to Carmer's book. He said he used sections of Carmer's description and dialogue to add "authority to my story with the visual details of Carmer's historical reckoning. I made a terrible error in judgment by omitting to acknowledge this due to my ignorance concerning the principles of fair use
Fair use
Fair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders...
." Even though The Bear Bryant Funeral Train failed to cite Carmer's book, Vice's doctoral dissertation (which was an earlier draft of the book) did contain an epigraph from Carmer's book at the start of the story in question. Vice has stated that he was advised to remove this and other epigraphs before publication "to make the book look more conventional."
Despite this apology and explanation, the University of Georgia Press revoked Vice's prize and destroyed all copies of the book.
While many literary commentators and editors agreed that Vice had made a mistake in failing to cite the original source of the story, there was also a feeling that the University of Georgia Press overreacted to the situation. Jake Adam York, a Southern United States
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
poet and editor of the Alabama literary journal Thicket, noted that Vice had allowed his short story and the four-page section of Carmer's original book to be published side by side in Thicket. To York, this action by Vice "implicitly acknowledges the relationship (and) allows the evidence to be made public." York added that doing this allowed the readers to enter the "intertextual space in which (Vice) has worked" and that what Vice was doing with his story was allusion
Allusion
An allusion is a figure of speech that makes a reference to, or representation of, people, places, events, literary work, myths, or works of art, either directly or by implication. M. H...
, not plagiarism
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
. York also stated that, according to his own analysis of Vice's story and Carmer's source material, Vice did not break copyright law.
Other commentators and editors who supported Vice stated that Vice was following in a long line of authors adapting older literary works for modern times. Examples of this include Alice Randall
Alice Randall
Alice Randall is an American author and songwriter. Randall grew up in Washington, D.C.. She attended Harvard University, where she earned an honors degree in English and American literature, before moving to Nashville in 1983 to become a country songwriter. She currently lives in Nashville,...
's The Wind Done Gone
The Wind Done Gone
The Wind Done Gone is the first novel written by Alice Randall. It was a bestselling historical parallel novel that reinterprets the famous American novel Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.- Plot summary :...
(based on Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind
The slaves depicted in Gone with the Wind are primarily loyal house servants, such as Mammy, Pork and Uncle Peter, and these slaves stay on with their masters even after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 sets them free...
), Suzan-Lori Parks
Suzan-Lori Parks
Suzan-Lori Parks is an African American playwright and screenwriter. She received the MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant in 2001, and the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play, Topdog/Underdog.-Early years:...
' Getting Mother's Body and Graham Swift
Graham Swift
Graham Colin Swift FRSL is a British author. He was born in London, England and educated at Dulwich College, London, Queens' College, Cambridge, and later the University of York. He was a friend of Ted Hughes...
's Last Orders (both updated versions of William Faulkner
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...
’s As I Lay Dying), and Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and...
's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is an absurdist, existentialist tragicomedy by Tom Stoppard, first staged at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1966. The play expands upon the exploits of two minor characters from Shakespeare's Hamlet, the courtiers Rosencrantz and Guildenstern...
(which plays off of Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
). Others stated that Vice' publisher acted in "haste" and questioned why the book had to be destroyed for what was probably not a copyright violation or a case of plagiarism.
Still, there were commentators who felt that Vice was indeed guilty of plagiarism and received the punishment he deserved. These commentators tended to state that since Vice was a professor of English, he should have known what he was doing.
After Vice's book was destroyed, remaining used copies on Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
and other booksellers were selling for hundreds of dollars.
Re-release of The Bear Bryant Funeral Train
In late March 2007, a new edition of the collection was published by River City Publishing. According to a report in The Oxford American, "The revised version will more closely mirror Vice’s 2001 dissertation from the University of Cincinnati, which contained many of the stories that ended up being published as The Bear Bryant Funeral Train. Unlike the UGA Press edition, it will be divided into two sections, the latter of which is set entirely in Tuscaloosa. In his dissertation, Vice described the Tuscaloosa stories as an 'attempt to reconcile the seemingly incompatible movements of Southern regionalism and international postmodernism.' In that vein, it contained epigraphs by Albert Camus, Basho, Guy Davenport, Bear Bryant, and, more importantly, Carmer, all of which will reappear in the River City edition."Aside from being reedited from an earlier version of the author's manuscript, the new edition also differs from the first in that it contains an additional story, "Demopolis;" an introduction by Vice in which he explains his literary intentions; and essays from other writers and professors which provide context for both the postmodern approach employed by Vice and the controversy surrounding the initial publication.
External links
- Vice's story "Tuscaloosa Knights"
- Flaming Cross by Carl Carmer, on which Vice based his story. This is a four page section from the chapter "Tuscaloosa Nights" in Stars Fell on Alabama.
- The Mississippi Writers and Musicians Project of Starkville High School page on Brad Vice
- Fell In Alabama: Brad Vice's Tuscaloosa Night