This workshop will be open to first-year graduate students in literature and any of the humanities areas. The focus will be on approaches to Don Quixote and implications for the study of narrative in general.
We will look at how Cervantes draws from the literary past, how he addresses Renaissance theory and “dialogues” with his counterparts in England, and how he writes fiction with a precocious anticipation of the development of the novel and of the theoretical issues that most concern scholars, critics, and readers into the twenty-first century. We will seek resources that can help a researcher explore the trajectory of narrative and the theoretical intersections of past and present.
There will be a significant interactive component to the workshop, with numerous short exercises that will allow participants liberally to engage in the discussion. It is hoped that topics covered – with Don Quixote as a blend of microcosm and macrocosm – will inform, animate, whet appetites, and aid participants in their present and future literary projects.
Prerequisites: Participants need not have knowledge of Spanish, but we would expect the participants to be familiar with Don Quixote.