1 to 3:30 pm
Towner Fellows Lounge
Catherine Gallagher has argued that the “rising” novel established a firm concept of fictionality that was widely accepted by the mid-eighteenth century. Why, then, did readers so often insist on the facticity of certain fictions: seeking out a heroine’s grave, for example, or tracking down prototypes for characters? Lanser argues that eighteenth-century fictional forms fomented both ontological uncertainty and a new investment in historicity. Her talk explores the textual and social conditions that led readers to resist the fictionality of self-proclaimed fictions and considers the consequences of that resistance, not least in the emergence of the historical novel.
Learn more about the speaker: Susan S. Lanser, Brandeis University.
Organized by Timothy Campbell, University of Chicago; Lisa A. Freeman, University of Illinois at Chicago; Richard Squibbs, DePaul University; and Helen Thompson, Northwestern University.
Faculty and graduate students of Center for Renaissance Studies consortium institutions may be eligible to apply for travel funds to attend CRS programs or to do research at the Newberry. Each member university sets its own policies and deadlines; contact your Representative Council member in advance for details.
This scholarly program is free and open to all, but space is limited and registration in advance is required. The fall seminar is a lecture format.