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

Upcoming Events

April
5
Date
Fri April 5th 2024, 9:00am - 5:30pm
Location:
Building 460, Margaret Jacks Hall
450 Jane Stanford Way, Building 460, Stanford, CA 94305
Terrace Room (Rm. 426)

We are excited to announce our CSN 2024 Conference, Stories and the Seas, which will be happening all day on Friday, April 5th.

Past Events

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

January
9
Date
Thu January 9th 2020, 4:00pm - 6:00pm
Location:
Terrace Room, Margaret Jacks Hall (Building 460)

For our first event of the Winter quarter, the Center for the Study of …

November
15
Date
Fri November 15th 2019, 2:00pm
Location:
Terrace Room, Margaret Jacks Hall (Building 460)

The Center for the Study of the Novel has invited professors Ato Quayson (Stanford), Richard Halpern (NYU), and John Kerrigan (Cambridge)…

October
10
Date
Thu October 10th 2019, 5:00pm - 7:00pm
Location:
Terrace Room, Margaret Jacks Hall (Building 460)

Stephen Best’s None Like Us (2018) in…

May
23
Date
Thu May 23rd 2019, 2:00pm - 5:00pm
Location:
Terrace Room

Wai Chee Dimock (Yale), Colin Milburn (Davis), John Plotz (Brandeis) What does literature have to tell us about the future of the earth in the Age of the Anthropocene?

May
23
Date
Thu May 23rd 2019, 2:00pm - 5:00pm
Location:
Margaret Jacks Hall, Terrace Room
Wai Chee Dimock (Yale), Colin Milburn (Davis), John Plotz (Brandeis)
 
What…