Forms of the Novel: Historical, Political, Aesthetic, Technological Graduate Seminar, French Dept.

Spring 2012 Professors: Emily Apter and Philippe Roger Apter: Office hrs. Tues: 4:15-6 Rm. 610

NB: The first meeting of this class will be postponed until Feb. 2. For class on Feb 2, please read selections from Stendhal, Le Rouge et le Noir and La Chartreuse de Parme.

This course will focus on how the nineteenth century French novel produced diverse forms to accommodate the advent of historical events, political and ideological transformations (revolution, wars, class conflict), new technologies and medial inventions (telegraphs, trains, cars), information management, intellectual dadas (collectomania, theology, materialism, feminism), fashion, intellectual fads and commodity fetishisms (with emphasis on the metaphysics of the object within realism). Authors will include Stendhal, Balzac, Flaubert, Zola, Villiers de lIsle-Adam and Mirbeau. Novels and narrative excerpts will be supplemented by critical texts ranging from criticism of the historical and ideological novel, to essays drawn from thing theory and object-oriented ontology. The course will be conducted in English and French so students must be comfortable speaking both languages. Texts will be primarily in French.
One oral presentation and term paper required. Required Texts (Please order directly from Amazon.fr) Stendhal, Le Rouge et le Noir (Folio Classique) Stendhal Lucien Leuwen (Livre de poche ed. Michel Crouzet) Balzac, Le Cousin Pons (Folio Classique) Flaubert, Madame Bovary (Folio Classique) Flaubert, Bouvard et Pcuchet (Folio Classique) Villiers de lIsle-Adam, LEve future (Folio Classique) Readings: Feb. 2. Class I. Stendhal, Le Rouge et le Noir Chapters I-VII Class II. Stendhal, La Chartreuse de Parme Chapters I VI (Blackboard) Class III. Stendhal Lucien Leuwen Part I, chaps I-IX, Part II, XXXVIII-XLV Classes IV-V. Balzac, Trait de la vie lgante, (Blackboard) Le Cousin Pons Classes VI-VII.

Zola, Selections: on Blackboard Au bonheur des dames La Bte humaine Germinal Le Docteur Pascal Classes VIII-X Flaubert, Madame Bovary Bouvard et Pcuchet Class XI-XII Villiers de lIsle-Adam, LEve future Class XIII Mirbeau, la 628-E8 (Gallica)

Critical Readings: Books and Essays will be on Reserve (Bobst) or available on Blackboard Perry Anderson, The Historical Novel in LRB (July 2011) David Cunningham, Capitalist Epics: Abstraction, Totality and the Theory of the Novel Radical Philosophy 163 (Sep/Oct 2010) Jacques Dubois, Stendhal. Une sociologie romanesque, La Dcouverte, 2007. Dubois, Stendhal romancier politique Formes et modles de l'engagement littraire (XVe-XXIe sicles), coll. Kaempfer, Florey et Meizoz ed., 2006 Oswald Ducrot, La description smantique des noncs franais et la notion de prsupposition (LHomme, 1968, I). Susan Suleiman, Authoritarian Fictions: The Ideological Novel as a Literary Genre Fredric Jameson, Representing Capitalism Jacques Rancire, La parole muette Rancire, La Haine de la dmocratie Marielle Mac, Balzac, inventeur de l`esthtique de lexistence? Le Trait de la vie lgante et la Thorie, Le Magazine Littraire July 1, 2011. Michel Gurin, La Politique de Stendhal Graham Harman, Guerrilla Metaphysics: Phenomenology and the Carpentry of Things Elaine Freedgood, The Ideas in Things Emily Apter, Cabinet Secrets, in Feminizing the Fetish Bruno Latour, Mixing Humans with non-Humans: Sociology of a Door-Closer Christina Lupton, The Fictions of the New Materialism (with permission of author) Leah Price, From The History of a Book to a `History of the Book, Representations 108 (Fall 2009) Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the Nineteenth Century Annette Michelson, On the Eve of the Future: The Reasonable Facsimile and the Philosophical Toy (October, 1984) Mary Anne Doane, Technophilia: Technology, Representation, and the Feminine