Cultural Institutions of the Novel

Cultural Institutions of the Novel

  • Author: Lynch, Deidre; Warner, William B.
  • Publisher: Duke University Press
  • ISBN: 9780822318545
  • eISBN Pdf: 9780822396505
  • Place of publication:  Durham , United States
  • Year of digital publication: 1996
  • Month: November
  • Pages: 496
  • DDC: 809.3
  • Language: English
The story of the development of the novel—its origin, rise, and increasing popularity as a narrative form in an ever-expanding range of geographic and cultural sites—is familiar and, according to the contributors to this volume, severely limited. In a far-reaching blend of comparative literature and transnational cultural studies, this collection shifts the study of the novel away from a consideration of what makes a particular narrative a novel to a consideration of how novels function and what cultural work they perform—from what novels are, to what they do.
The essays in Cultural Institutions of the Novel find new ways to analyze how a genre notorious for its aesthetic unruliness has become institutionalized—defined, legitimated, and equipped with a canon. With a particular focus on the status of novels as commodities, their mediation of national cultures, and their role in transnational exchange, these pieces range from the seventeenth century to the present and examine the forms and histories of the novel in England, Nigeria, Japan, France, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States. Works by Jane Austen, Natsume Sôseki, Gabriel García Márquez, Buchi Emecheta, and Toni Morrison are among those explored as Cultural Institutions of the Novel investigates how theories of “the” novel and disputes about which narratives count as novels shape social struggles and are implicated in contests over cultural identity and authority.

Contributors. Susan Z. Andrade, Lauren Berlant, Homer Brown, Michelle Burnham, James A. Fujii, Nancy Glazener, Dane Johnson, Lisa Lowe, Deidre Lynch, Jann Matlock, Dorothea von Mücke, Bridget Orr, Clifford Siskin, Katie Trumpener, William B. Warner

  • Contents
  • Introduction: The Transport of the Novel / Deidre Lynch and William B. Warner
  • Prologue: Why the Story of the Origin of the (English) Novel Is an American Romance (If Not the Great American Novel) / Homer Brown
  • Part I. The Contact Zone
    • Chapter 1. Between England and America: Captivity, Sympathy, and the Sentimental Novel / Michelle Burnham
    • Chapter 2. The Maori House of Fiction / Bridget Orr
    • Chapter 3. Decolonization, Displacement, Disidentification: Asian American "Novels" and the Question of History / Lisa Lowe
    • Chapter 4. The Rise of Gabriel García Márquez and Toni Morrison / Dane Johnson
  • Part II. (Trans)National Canons
    • Chapter 5. At Home with Jane Austen / Deidre Lynch
    • Chapter 6. The Abbotsford Guide to India: Romantic Fictions of Empire and the Narratives of Canadian Literature / Katie Trumpener
    • Chapter 7. Writing Out Asia: Modernity, Canon, and Natsume Soseki's Kokoro / James A. Fujii
    • Chapter 8. The Joys of Daughterhood: Gender, Nationalism, and the Making of Literary Tradition(s) / Susan Z. Andrade
  • Part III. The Romance of Consumption
    • Chapter 9. Formulating Fiction: Romancing the General Reader in Early Modern Britain / William B. Warner
    • Chapter 10. "To Love a Murderer" - Fantasy, Sexuality, and the Political Novel: The Case of Caleb Williams / Dorothea von Mucke
    • Chapter 11. The Limts of Reformism: The Novel, Censorship, and the Politics of Adultery in Nineteenth-Century France / Jann Matlock
    • Chapter 12. Romances for "Big and Little Boys": The U.S. Romantic Revival of the 1890s and Jame's The Turn of the Screw / Nancy Glazener
    • Chapter 13. Pax Americana: The Case of Show Boat / Lauren Berlant
  • Epilogue: The Rise of Novelism / Clifford Siskin
  • Works Cited
  • Index
  • Contributors

Subjects

    SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER

    By subscribing, you accept our Privacy Policy