American Literature Association Annual Convention
Boston, 5/24/07-5/27/07

MELVILLE AND THE MEANING OF GENRE

Is the concept of "genre" a meaningful one for understanding Melville? As
scholars have long discussed, his career appears to move among what we
might construe to be recognizable generic traditions (travel narrative,
romance, sketch, tale, public poetry, the epic, and the lyric, for example)
but also to contest them. (What kind of book is Moby-Dick? Is Pierre a
sentimental novel? Why are the late poems mixed with prose, and why is the
late prose mixed with poems? And what on earth is an "inside narrative"?)
Scholars have presented arguments linking Melville's relation to genre to
both metaphysical and marketplace quarrels. This panel seeks to explore in
fresh ways the uses and limits of the concept of "genre"­formally,
historically, biographically--to Melville studies, addressing all stages of
his career, including the large body of work he produced after he stopped
publishing fiction.

Please submit abstracts of 500 words via postal mail or email by 5 January
2007 to Elizabeth Renker, Department of English, The Ohio State University,
164 W. 17th Ave., Columbus, OH 43210-1370, renker.1_at_osu.edu.

Elizabeth Renker
Associate Professor
English Department
The Ohio State University
164 W. 17th Ave.
Columbus, OH 43210-1370
(614) 688-3835

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Received on Mon Oct 09 2006 - 10:57:45 EDT