Center for the Study of the Novel

The Center for the Study of the Novel promotes conversation on the novel and related narrative genres as these forms have 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. CSN further is committed to studying the history and practice of literary criticism and theory illuminating the novel and its relations to society and culture. 

Objects of inquiry include long prose fictions, the powerful cultural role played by the novel, oral forms and their relation to print culture, as well as 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, we also study forgotten and poetically devalued novels, including those that are situated at, and help to define, the boundaries of the genre. 

Click here to visit the Center for the Study of the Novel website

Past Events

February
8
Date
Mon February 8th 2021, 1:00pm
Location:
Zoom

Please join us on Monday, February 8th for the Center for the Study of the Novel’s third book launch event of the year.

January
15
Date
Fri January 15th 2021, 12:00pm
Location:
Zoom

Please join us on Friday, January 15th for the Center for the Study of the Novel’s second book launch event of the year.

October
28
Date
Wed October 28th 2020, 12:00pm

We will be hosting Ximena Briceno, Lecturer of Latin American Literature and Culture at Stanford University, who will be presenting on “Amphibian Encounters: Del Toro through…

October
27
Date
Tue October 27th 2020, 10:00am

We are delighted to have at the Working Group on the Novel Maciej Kurzynski, PhD candidate in the East Asian Languages and Cultures and recipient of the Stanford Interdisciplinary…

May
28
Date
Thu May 28th 2020, 6:00pm
Location:
TBD

Respondent: Margaret Cohen, Professor of English, Stanford 

Article Abstract: 

May
21
Date
Thu May 21st 2020, 6:00pm
Location:
TBD

Chiara Giovanni, Comparative Literature, Prospectus

Respondent: Diana Looser, Assistant Professor in Theater and Performance Studies, Stanford

May
14
Date
Thu May 14th 2020, 6:00pm
Location:
TBD

Respondent: Thomas Ardel, Professor and chair of LGBT Studies at CCSF

Paper abstract

April
30
Date
Thu April 30th 2020, 6:00pm
Location:
TBD

Respondent: Lisa Surwillo, Professor and Chair of ILAC, Stanford

Abstract of the Dissertation Project: 

March
4
Date
Wed March 4th 2020, 6:00pm
Location:
TBD

Respondent: Elizabeth Kessler, American Studies

Abstract of the Dissertation Project: 

February
21
Date
Fri February 21st 2020, 3:45pm
Location:
Terrace Room, Margaret Jacks Hall (Building 460)

Introduction

Lisa Zunshine

The Narrative Brain: What we Remember and Learn from Stories.

Fritz Breithaupt