##The Rise of the Novel (core course)
A course on the long history of the novel, stretching from its eighteenth-century origins to its Victorian and Modernist incarnations through its post-colonial and post-modernist reconfigurations.
Includes
- close attention to careful reading of landmark canonical novels and authors (like Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, Samuel Richardson's Pamela, Frances Burney's Evelina, Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, Charles Dickens's stories, Elizbeth Gaskell's Cranford, Henry James's Daisy Miller, James Joyce's Ulysses, and V.S. Naipaul's A House for Mr. Biswas)
- a survey of the main critical and theoretical approaches to the novel
- investigation of printing and publication history
- introductory text-mining techniques (no experience required, but optional final projects involving advanced work possible.)
In addition to reading canonical novels and watching the core concepts of the genre unfold over the course of three centuries, we will play with early editions of old books, explore new techniques for the “distant reading” of large corpuses of novels, think about linked open data, be critical about all kinds of accounts of the novel's "rise," ask questions about the relation between the history of novelistic realism and contemporary speculative genres.
Suggested for readers, writers, critics, and reviewers of fiction, fans of experimental-genre literary criticism, aspiring librarians and information scientists, and students interested in exploring humanities applications of computational techniques.
Swarthmore College. Fall 2015. Professor Buurma. MWF 10:30-11:20. 1 credit.