ABSTRACT
The itch to imitate can get quite strong. What someone else is already doing suddenly seems novel – creative – for oneself. Perhaps that is one of the drivers of academic-based scholarship: we constantly create insofar as our proximity to those like ourselves makes us constantly imitative. One can actually feel the rush of innovation in taking up a phrase or image or argument from another! And if I am really (only) speaking for myself then I (also) project that feeling onto countless others, a sort of return flow, unafraid to generalise because I imagine I am not alone.
