Center for the Study of the Novel

About

The Center for the Study of the Novel promotes conversation 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 novels that are situated at, and help to define, the boundaries of the genre.

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. It is currently directed by Alex Woloch.

Programming

The Center hosts annual conferences each year, as well as the series, Books at the Center, which brings authors of recent influential critical books to discuss their work in the company of distinguished critics. 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, Fredric Jameson, 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 develop a sustained conversation that highlights this dimension of their work. One of the goals of 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 typically include discussion of both a work-in-progress and the novel, or section of a novel, that is at the center of this work. Courses at the Center is a new pedagogy initiative for 2007 intended to foster graduate student involvement and research. This spring the Center piloted this program with Franco Moretti's seminar on The Theory of the Novel.

Past Events 2000-2008

I. Conferences at the Center

2007-2008

Race and Narrative Theory (Participants: Ramon Saldivar, Ulka Anjaria, Jennifer Brody, Dorothy Hale, Ernesto Martinez, James Phelan, Carla Kaplan, Vilashini Cooppan, Paula Moya, Kenneth Warren, Herman Beavers)

2006-2007

The Extreme Contemporary (Participants: Speakers: Svetlana Boym, Joshua Clover, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Alan Liu, Bill Luoma, Katie Salen, Celeste Langan, Tyrus Miller, Sianne Ngai, Anne Wagner)

For a Theory of the Novel of the 21st Century (Participants: Antonia Syson, Jesper Juul, Qiancheng Li, Sylvain Venayre, Anatole Pierre Fuksas, Lynn Festa, Alex Woloch, Jesse Matz, Kent Puckett, Mariano Siskind, Chris Warnes, Vilashini Cooppan, Anjali Prabhu, Leah Price, Jonathan Zwicker, Amanpal Garcha, J me David, Andrea Miconi, Steven Johnson)

2005-2006

Adventure (Participants: Lorna Hutson, Giancarlo Maiorino, Srinivas Aravamudan, Sylvie Thorel, J. Doyne Farmer, Scott Bukatman, Sunil Agnani, Joshua Clover, Ursula Heise, Nicholas Paige)

Illustration (Particpants: Emily Apter, Sharon Marcus, Anne Higonnet, Vanessa Schwartz, Anthony Vidler, Nancy Armstrong, Leslie Camhi, Kate Flint, Christopher Prendergast, William Schaefer, Richard Terdiman)

2004-2005

Reading (Particpants: April Allison, Peter Brooks, Roger Chartier, Craig Dworkin, Roland Greene, Carla Hesse, Frank Lentricchia, Sharon Marcus, Haun Saussy)

The Maritime in Modernity (Particpants: Ian Baucom, Cesare Casarino, Chris Connery, Nina Gerassi-Navarro, Darcy Grigsby, Robert Harms, Bernhard Klein, Jonathan Lamb, Chandra Mukerji, Geoffrey Quilley, Marcus Rediker, Nigel Rigby, Allan Sekula, Philip Steinberg, T. J. Clark, Samuel Otter, Jessica Riskin, Kaeren Wigan)

2003-2004

Prose (Participants: Michal Ginsburg and Lorri Nadrea, Sylvie Thorel-Cailleteau, Aranye Fradenburg, Caryl Emerson, Ann Banfield, Wlad Godzich, Robert Kawashima, D. A. Miller

Representations of the Enemy (Participants: Carlo Ginzburg, Donald Sasson, Djelal Kadir, Murat Belge, Gopal Balakrishnan, John Brenkman, Susan Neiman, Bruce Robbins)

2002-2003

Origins of the Novel: A Comparative Assessment (Participants: Tomas H , Andrew Plaks, Joan Ramon Resina, Thomas DiPiero, Nancy Armstrong, Aranye Fradenburg, Leah Price, and William Warner.)

The Persistence of Realism (Participants: Roberto Schwarz, Hilary Schor, Seung-Cheol Song, Alex Woloch, Perry Anderson, Peter Brooks, Margaret Cohen, and Fredric Jameson)

2001-2002

Teaching Stories (Participants: Mary Foote, Eric Chandler, Scott Lankford, Michal Peled Ginsburg, Elizabeth Langland, Hilary Schor, Richard Terdiman)

Epic and Novel (Participants: Meenakshi Mukherjee, Myra Jehlen, Neil Larsen, Clarisse Zimra, Gilbert Adair)

Interdisciplinary Work-in-Progress (Participants: Harro Muller, Nathalie Ferrand, Philip Fisher, Elizabeth Amman, Thomas Pavel, Cosma Shalizi, Ian Duncan)

2000-2001

Fiction Bound and Unbound (Participants: Kate Flint, Catherine Gallagher, Walter Siti, Henry Yiheng Zhao)

Statistics and the Rise of the Novel: Quantitative Evidence and Literary History (Participants: John Austin, Wendy Griswold, Priya Joshi, Elisa Marti-Lopez, James Raven, Mario Santana, Jonathan Zwicker)

Experiments in Fiction Today (Participants: Ursula Heise, Brian McHale, Gilbert Sorrentino, Kaun Tei Yamashita

II. Books at the Center

2007-2008

Peter Brooks, Henry James Goes to Paris (Discussants: Sianne Ngai, D.A. Miller, Alex Woloch)

Catherine Gallagher, The Body Economic (Discussants: Franco Moretti, John Plotz, Catherine Gallagher)

2006-2007

Michael McKeon, The Secret History of Domesticity (Discussants: John Bender, Margaret Cohen, Michael McKeon)

Jody Greene, The Trouble with Ownership (Discussants: Margaret Ferguson, Jody Greene, Carla Hesse)

2005-2006

Pascale Casanova, The World Republic of Letters (Discussants: Pascale Casanova, Franco Moretti, Aamir Mufti)

Deidre Lynch, The Economy of Character (Deidre Lynch, April Alliston, Susan Schuyler)

2004-2005

Jonathan Lamb, Preserving the Self in the South Sea, 1680-1840 (Discussants: Margaret Cohen, Jody Greene, Jonathan Lamb)

D. A. Miller, Jane Austen, or The Secret of Style (Discussants: Terry Castle, D. A. Miller, Alex Woloch)

2003-2004

Thomas Pavel, La Pens e du Roman (Particpants: Joshua Landy, Franco Moretti, Thomas Pavel)

Alison Case, Plotting Women (Participants: Crisi Benford, Alison Case, Kent Puckett)

2002-2003

Roberto Schwarz, A Master on the Periphery of Capitalism (Discussants: Perry Anderson, Lucia Sa, Roberto Schwarz)

Katie Trumpener, Bardic Nationalism (Discussants: Ian Duncan, Seth Lerer, Katie Trumpener)

2001-2002

Idelber Avelar, Untimely Present (Discussants: Donna Jones, Idelber Avelar, Franco Moretti)

Michael McKeon, The Theory of the Novel (Discussants: Robert Polhemus, D. A. Miller, Michael McKeon)

Leah Price, The Anthology and the Rise of the Novel (Discussants: Dawn Coleman, Priya Joshi, Leah Price)

2000-2001

William Warner, Licensing Pleasure (Discussants: John Bender, James Turner, William Warner)

Margaret Cohen, The Sentimental Education of the Novel (Discussants: Margaret Cohen, Sharon Marcus, Franco Moretti)

Margaret Doody, The True Story of the Novel (Discussants: Terry Castle, Margaret Doody, Patricia Parker)

Ian Watt Lecture

2007-2008: Fredric Jameson, Realism: A Theoretical Problem

2006-2007: Margaret Doody, Nasty Characters and Unlovable Styles: The Novel's Negative Way to Pleasure

2005-2006: Bill Brown, Novel Objects: Object Relations in an Expanded Field

2004-2005: Nancy Ruttenberg

2003-2004: Catherine Gallagher, Daniel Deronda: The 'Too-Much' of Literature

2002-2003: Jonathan Culler, Narratology Today

2001-2002: Mario Vargas Llosa

2000-2001: Walter Benn Michaels, The Novel after History and Theory