Novelists on the Novel

Faculty of Arts

Département de langue et littérature françaises / Department of English

INTERNATIONAL COLLOQUIUM

Novelists on the Novel

La poétique des romanciers

The novel has no fixed rules. Yet, whether included in the novel itself or set apart from it – in essays, prefaces, letters, reviews, and interviews – novelists’ commentary accompanies the development of the novel from its inception and informs what can be called its “thinking.” This colloquium examines novelists’ thoughts on novel-writing that occur outside of the novels themselves. To this end, we propose to examine French, English, and Quebecois discourse on the novel from the eighteenth century to our own time.

6-7 November 2008

McGill University

Leacock building, room 232

All welcome

We wish to thank the Fonds québécois pour la recherche sur la société et la culture, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and McGill University Faculty of Arts for their financial support.

PROGRAM

Thursday, November 6

9:00 am  Welcome word

9:30 am - 12:00 pm : 18th century English novel

Chair: Marcie Frank (Concordia University)

9:30-10:00  Claude Rawson (Yale University)

• • Fielding and the “rise of the novel”: conservation of character and the little man

10:00-10:30 Danielle Bobker (Concordia University)

• • Censorship, Scandal and Imagination in Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

10:30-10:45 Break

10:45-11:15 Betty Schellenberg (Simon Fraser University)

• • A Futile Resistance?: Bluestockings in Dialogue with the Novel

11:15-11:45 Katie Gemmill (McGill University)

• • Ventriloquized Opinions of Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and Emma: Reading the Resonances of Austen’s Critical Voice

2:00 pm - 5:00 pm : Québec Novel

Chair: François Ricard (Université McGill)

2:00-2:30  Réjean Beaudoin (University of British Columbia)

• • La canadianité rejette la (mauvaise) pensée du roman

2:30-3:00  Mathieu Bélisle (University of Chicago)

• • Les romanciers québécois et la «définition idéale» du roman autour de 1960

3:00-3:15 Break

3:15-3:45  François Dumont (Université Laval)

• • Le carnet comme critique du roman chez André Major

3:45-4:15  Michel Biron (Université McGill)

• • Le conflit des fictions chez Suzanne Jacob

Friday, November 7

9:30 am -12:00 pm : 20th century French novel

Chair: Michel Biron (Université McGill)

9:30-10:00  Isabelle Daunais (Université McGill)

• • Le «domaine capital et international» du roman: le tournant des années 1920

10:00-10:30 Christophe Pradeau (Université Paris 13)

• • Le recours à l’allégorie (sur Gide)

10:30-10:45 Break

10:45-11:15 Katerine Gosselin (Université McGill)

• • Les romanciers face aux nouveautés joycienne et proustienne

11:15-11:45 Tiphaine Samoyault (Université Paris 8)

• • L’art du romancier contre l’art du roman

2:00 pm – 5:00 pm : 20th century Anglo-american novel

Chair: Peter Sabor (McGill University)

2:00-2:30  Maria DiBattista (Princeton University)

• • The Cruel Past: Willa Cather’s Historic Muse

2:30-3:00  Nicola Nixon (Concordia University)

• • L’envers de l'histoire contemporaine and James’s Historic Page

3:00-3:15 Break

3:15-3:45  Liisa Stephenson (McGill University)

• • Decorating Fiction: Edith Wharton’s Literary Architecture

3:45-4:15  Allan Hepburn (McGill University)

• • French Translations: Elizabeth Bowen and the Idea of Character