workinggroup.html

The Center for the Study of the Novel at Stanford, under the direction of Alex Woloch, is sponsoring a Working Group on the Novel and soliciting members. This group 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.

We plan on meeting roughly three times per quarter. 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.

The Working Group on the Novel is a Marta Sutton Weeks workshop within the Geballe Research Workshop program for the 2008-2009 year. Funding for this program is made possible by gifts to endowment from individuals, the National Endowment for the Humanities,
and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Kenneth Ligda kenligda@stanford.edu

Lupe Carrillo lupec@stanford.edu

Mike Benveniste mbenv@stanford.edu

Fall 2007

Pattern Recognition, William Gibson
Presenter : Lee Konstantinou
Respondent : Heather Houser

The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James
Presenter : Nir Evron
Respondent : Marissa Gemma

18th century “it” narratives
Presenter : Miruna Stanica
Respondent : Natalie Phillips

Winter 2008

1/23/08
The Captain’s Daughter, Alexander Pushkin
Presenter : Luba Golburt / Berkeley
Respondent : Elif Batuman

As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner
Presenter : Felicia Martinez
Respondent : Jolene Hubbs

Discussion of Fredric Jameson, led by
Michael Benveniste, in preparation for
Jameson’s Ian Watt Lecture

The History of Constantius and Pulchera, Anonymous
Presenter : Matthew Garrett
Respondent : Joseph Shapiro

Spring 2008

Discussion with James Phelan / OSU
founding editor of Narrative
Late romances, William Morris
Presenter : John Plotz / Brandeis
Respondent : Kenneth Ligda

5/15/08
The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith
Presenter : Karen Leibowitz / Berkeley
Respondent : Matthew Garrett

5/29/08
Sartor Resartus, Thomas Carlyle
Presenter : Kara Wittman
Respondents : Becky Richardson and Jillian Hess

Fall 2008

Bird of the East, Tawfiq Al-Hakim
Presenter : Nirvana Tanoukhi
Respondent : Vilashini Cooppan / UC Santa Cruz

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, GentlemanLaurence Sterne
Presenter : Natalie Phillips
Respondent: Jonathan Kramnick / Rutgers

Arthur Mervyn; or Memoirs of the Year 1793,
Charles Brockden Brown
Presenter : Joseph Shapiro
Respondent : James Wood

Winter 2009

Saturday 1/24 12:30
Discussion of the work of Nicholas Dames
Organized by Nikil Saval and Natalie Phillips

Wednesday 2/18 6:30–8:30
Beloved, Toni Morrison
Presenter : Michael Benveniste
Respondent : Jennifer Harford Vargas

Thursday 3/12 6:30–8:30
My Son’s Story, Nadine Gordimer
Presenter : David Palumbo-Liu
Respondent : Nigel Hatton / MTL

Spring 2009

Thursday 4/16 6:30–8:30
A Journal of the Plague Year, Daniel Defoe
Presenter : Emily Wilkinson
Respondent : Andrew Bricker

Wednesday 4/29 5:15–7:00
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, John Cleland
Presenter: Robert Folkenflik / UC Irvine
Respondent : John Bender

Wednesday 5/27 6:30–830
The Echo Maker, Richard Powers
Presenter : Heather Houser
Respondent : TBA