It often seems that, when not simply repeating itself, history is the stuff of even the most radical of innovations. This phenomenon of going backward in order to go forward is as true of the history of the novel as of any other kind of history. In this course we will consider what the novel is, has been, and could be. We will assume that what the novel is is often about how it responds to what it was, and by reading novels in pairs, we’ll consider how later novels revisit earlier ones—to critique, re-examine, answer, and echo them. We will elaborate and sharpen these formal questions with reference to some of the important twentieth-century theories of the novel. By starting with the assumption that the form is now an international one, used to do similar things but in very different ways around the world, we’ll look at the effects different histories and different cultural traditions have had on what all these writers still call "the novel." And we’ll ask if it’s still meaningful to talk of a form of the novel in the face of its proliferating modes and uses.

Our theoretical readings will be interspersed between the novels, both as accompaniments and (in three cases) as stand-alone assignments. All of these readings are available on reserve in the library.

Requirements will include a running critical journal (consisting of weekly responses to the readings), an in-class presentation (approx. 10 -15 min., with notes/outline to be handed in), a response to a colleague’s presentation (approx. 5 min.), and an independently researched seminar paper (with proposal, bibliography, and draft due along the way). Finally—to stress the obvious—the seminar will rise or fall based on the active, enthusiastic, and brilliant participation of all its members; such participation is expected and required.

Texts:
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre (ed. Mason)
Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea
Isabel Allende, The House of the Spirits
Antonio Skármeta, The Postman (Burning Patience)
Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
Michael Cunningham, The Hours
Kawabata Yasunari, Snow Country
Banana Yoshimoto, Kitchen

8/29   Intro
Please read the first 2 chapters of Jane Eyre for this meeting.

9/5 Bronte
Jane Eyre, vols. 1-2
Poovey, Uneven Developments, 126-63, 232-37 (notes)

9/12   Lukacs
from The Theory of the Novel: 11-23, 56-93, 97-105, 112-23
from The Historical Novel: 89-99, 123-33, 138-52, 166-70, 230-45

9/19   Bronte
Jane Eyre, vol. 3
Nussbaum, Poetic Justice, 1-52

9/26   Ortega
from Meditations on Quixote: 111-65, 181-92 (notes)
from The Dehumanization of Art and Notes on the Novel: 53-95

10/3   Rhys
Wide Sargasso Sea
Anderson, Imagined Communities, 17-40

10/10   Bahktin
from The Dialogic Imagination: 3-83, 259-300, 324-33

10/17   fall break: no class

10/24   Allende
The House of the Spirits, --261

10/31   Allende
The House of the Spirits
Jameson, The Political Unconscious, 17-23, 103-50

11/7   Skarmeta
The Postman (Burning Patience)
Kumdera, Testaments Betryaed, 3-33
proposal due

11/14   Woolf
Mrs. Dalloway
initial bibliography due

11/21
Thanksgiving break

11/28   Cunningham
The Hours
annotated bibliography due

12/5   Kawabata
Snow Country
Richie, "Japan: An Introduction"
Keene, "Japanese Aesthetics"
[draft due]
article about Koetsu exhibit, Philadeliphia Art Museum

12/12   Yoshimoto
Kitchen
paper due