Working group on the novel

Please save the date for the upcoming meeting of the Working Group on the Novel, which will take place on Tuesday, March 1st from 6pm to 8pm in the Terrace Room in Margaret Jacks (building 460).

Anna Castillo (PhD candidate, ILAC) will present a chapter of dissertation research, entitled “Inorganic Intimacy.” Here’s what Anna has to say about her work:

This talk, which investigates one novel’s representations of intimate exchanges between human protagonists and their non-human partners, focuses on how anthropocentric understandings of gender and sexuality can be expanded through a focus on the material nature of those exchanges. As I analyze Ariel Magnus’ Muñecas (2008) with a new materialist approach, I will call attention to the ways that this novel forefronts intimacy’s materiality, specifically the way it operates both culturally and environmentally. The central aim of the talk will be to explore how thinking about and through the materiality of these dolls might put pressure on the very idea of sexuality – a human-centric quality – by focusing on the abilities of these non-human actants to influence and even satisfy sexual desires. I will argue that such intimate engagements lead to a destabilization of what counts as human intimacy and reveal an important aspect of posthuman intimacy: things can be our partners, too. The talk is part of a larger project that seeks to understand what novels can teach us about the way technology is changing the way we relate to ourselves, and to each other. I have been tracing what I am calling posthuman intimacy in recent Argentine and Chilean novels that prominently feature three distinct forms of sex tech: virtual avatars, plastic surgery, and – what I focus on here – silicone sex toys. The goal of the overall project is to explore both the potential flesh-and-blood impacts of these technological interventions on everyday intimacy as well as the symbolic influence of high-tech sexual allure on the sexual consciousness of the region.

Find Anna’s chapter here

In conjunction with the Stanford Humanities Center, the Center for the Study of the Novel at Stanford established a Working Group on the Novel.  Its purpose is to provide a forum for established and emerging scholars whose work engages the history and theory of the novel to discuss their scholarship. In so doing, the Working Group aims to create a community of scholars and to facilitate an ongoing discussion of the novel and novel studies throughout the year.Among the group’s goals is to address the shift in novel studies toward less canonical European and American texts and toward non-Western national, cultural and linguistic traditions.

The Working Group meets roughly three times per quarter. Meetings include discussion of a specific novel, or section of a novel, that forms the background for a work-in-progress, followed by a discussion of that work. In 2010-11, we added meetings which focused on critical readings in the history and theory of the novel in order to promote the collective exploration and research of topics of interest under the auspices of the Center.

Ella Elbaz-Nir
Nicholas James Fenech
Victoria Susan Googasian
Mark Andrew Taylor