"Infamous Form" (EC/ASECS 11/1-11/3, Baltimore)
Samuel Johnson may have been wrong about the staying power of Tristram Shandy, but it's nevertheless clear that some of the eighteenth century's oddest works didn't "do long." Prompted by renewed attention to these oddities, this panel seeks papers that theorize the experimental novel of eighteenth-century Britain. Must the experimental novel be defined against the emergent realist novel? What texts might comprise the experimental canon? What contemporary discourses (scientific? philosophical? commercial? political?) might help us to understand these forms? (Papers that reject the term "experimental novel" with disgust also welcome!)
Send abstracts of 250 words to Stephanie Hershinow by June 15th (stephanie.insley@gmail.com).
Conference information can be found here: http://www.jimandellen.org/ecasecs/2012announce.html