Center for the Study of the Novel

About

The Center for the Study of the Novel promotes conversation and scholarship on the novel, as this seminal literary form has been practiced across history and cultures. CSN is committed to the importance of studying literature as a primary form of human expression, even as it examines what interdisciplinary perspectives may tell us about literature, and the novel in particular. Our inquiry examines the novel as a fundamental literary expression of modernity, and also asks about the powerful cultural role played by narrative beyond the novel, whether it is the oral forms that precede print culture or the expansion of narrative into newer media, such as cinema and digital technologies. We attend to the poetic and aesthetic dimensions of the novel, and ask how the literary aspects of the novel are shaped by extra-literary contexts and other artistic paradigms. Even as CSN devotes significant attention to major works of the novelistic canon, CSN is also committed to the importance of studying forgotten and poetically devalued novels, and expanding the scope of critical inquiry to include the great unread.

CSN's primary venue is a yearly series of events which bring speakers from across the US and beyond to address audiences from the literature and related departments at Stanford, as well as from across the Bay Area. CSN was founded by Franco Moretti in 2000, who was its director 2000-2004. Events across his directorship charted the contours of the novel across geography and history. Under the leadership of Margaret Cohen, director from 2004-2007, the center focused on how the novel edges other media, genres, and forms.

The Center in the Press
Interaction, "A Novel Idea"

Programming

The Center hosts two annual conferences. Conference topics in the past have included "Realism," "Prose," "The Enemy," "Reading," "Adventure," and "Illustration." In the 2006-2007 season, "The Extreme Contemporary," addresses new directions in novel practice, with an emphasis on the novel's edge with new media. "For a Theory of the Novel of the 21st Century," will bring to Stanford emerging international scholars on the novel for a workshop on future directions in novel study.

The Center also hosts the series, Books at the Center, which brings authors of recent influential critical books to discuss their work in the company of distinguished critics. Authors in the past have included Jonathan Lamb, D.A. Miller, Deidre Lynch, and Pascale Casanova.

The Ian Watt lecture on the History and Theory of the Novel presents an annual opportunity to discuss core intellectual issues surrounding the novel and its study, commemorating the renowned Stanford professor whose work has profoundly influenced literary study for nearly 50 years. Graduate students in Stanford's Department of English and Division of Literature, Cultures and Languages, select the speaker. Speakers are not limited to works of any specific nation, language, or historical period and are encouraged to engage critical theories of the form and to contest definitions of the novel itself. Past speakers have included Bill Brown, Catherine Gallagher, Nancy Ruttenburg, and Mario Vargas Llosa.

The Center's Working Group on the Novel provides an opportunity for students and faculty in different departments whose work is oriented toward the history and theory of the novel to form a sustained working group that highlights this dimension of their work. One of the goals for the group is to address the re-scaling of novel studies, toward both less canonical European and American texts and novels outside of American and European contexts. Workshop meetings will include discussion of a specific novel, or section of a novel, that is the background for a work-in-progress, followed by a discussion of the work-in-progress.

Courses at the Center is a new pedagogy initiative for 2007 intended to foster graduate student involvement and research. This spring the Center will pilot this program with Franco Moretti's seminar on The Theory of the Novel.