Cultural Institutions of the Novel

by Lynch, Deidre; Warner, William Beatty; Brown, Homer (CON); Burnham, Michelle (CON)

• ISBN13: 9780822318439
• ISBN10: 0822318431
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-12-01
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr

Summary

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 inCultural Institutions of the Novelfind 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 Socirc;seki, Gabriel Garciacute;a Maacute;rquez, Buchi Emecheta, and Toni Morrison are among those explored asCultural Institutions of the Novelinvestigates 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. Challenging the notion that the novel is a Western franchise, examining the ways that novels navigate between cultures, and offering new ways to think about novels, this is a pivotal and indispensable volume for student, scholar, and teacher alike.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 Muuml;cke, Bridget Orr, Clifford Siskin, Katie Trumpener, William B. Warner

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Transport of the Novel

Prologue: Why the Story of the Origin of the (English) Novel Is an American Romance (If Not the Great American Novel)

The Contact Zone

Between England and America: Captivity, Sympathy, and the Sentimental Novel

The Maori House of Fiction

Decolonization, Displacement, Disidentification: Asian American "Novels" and the Question of History

The Rise of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Toni Morrison

(Trans)National Canons

At Home with Jane Austen

The Abbotsford Guide to India: Romantic Fictions of Empire and the narratives of Canadian Literature

Writing Out Asia: Modernity, Canon, and Natsume Soseki's Kokoro

The Joys of Daughterhood: Gender, Nationalism, and the Making of Literary Tradition(s)

The Romance of Consumption

Formulating Fiction: Romancing the General Reader in Early Modern Britain

"To Love a Murderer" Fantasy, Sexuality, and the Political Novel: The Case of Caleb Williams

The Limits of Reformism: The Novel, Censorship, and the Politics of Adultery in Nineteenth-Century France

Romances for "Big and Little Boys": The U.S. Romantic Revival of the 1890s and James's The Turn of the Screw

Pas Americans: The Case of Show Boat

Epilogue: The Rise of Novelism

Works Cited

Index

Contributors

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