Class name: “Theories of the Novel”
Taught by: Visiting Assistant Professor of English Alexander Millen
What Millen has to say about his class:
The class has two main aims: first, to study the many ways that people have understood the novel as a cultural form across time; second, to think about the novel itself—novels themselves—as offering up a kind of theory, a kind of thinking. In short, we study theories about the novel, and we also consider theories belonging to the novel, proper to the novel.
Across the semester, we test these theories by reading an eclectic cluster of novels from the classic to the contemporary to ask some fundamental questions: What distinguishes novels from other artistic forms? How does the novel imagine the relation between the individual and society? In what ways might novels challenge and critique the worlds they are so invested in describing? Why are certain plots, or recognizable types of imaginary person, more lasting than others? How might we estrange ourselves a little from key features of novelistic writing, things we may well take for granted—plot, character, point of view, style, genre, mimesis—to consider their distinctiveness afresh? I hope that students come away from this class excited about all the promises and possibilities that the novel affords.
Millen on why he wanted to teach this class:
My own research tries to think about the literary historical drift of the novel as a form (and I did chuckle when the class read some of E. M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel, in which words and phrases like “tendency” and “the development of the novel” are derided as the preserve of the “pseudo-scholar.”) This kind of approach, anyway, this daring to speak of tendencies within the novel, encourages us to think across historical timelines and across different national traditions.
Part of my own excitement in putting this course together was that I would be able to see students draw connections between, say, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy. Another motivation for teaching this course is my hunch that it can be easy to take certain aspects of the novel for granted. I wanted to call attention to those things we often find ourselves assuming about how novels work, what goes into a novel, and what comes out of it.
Millen on what makes his class unique:
Given the diversity and range of Haverford English courses—far beyond the world of the novel, I should point out—I can make few claims to uniqueness. But one session that I was especially looking forward to all semester was being able to get our hands on the various publication formats that novels have taken over the centuries.
This session in particular I owe entirely to Head of Special Collections Sarah Horowitz. Haverford possesses an extraordinary array of literary materials, and in our session with Sarah we moved through various publication formats: subscription models, serials, bespoke publishing. Especially diverting were the many pages of advertisements for weird gadgets, quack potions, and other Victoriana included in the serialized copies of Bleak House. Examining novels in the context in which they were first devoured by readers prompted some illuminating and funny discussions about the reading habits and practices of our own time.