Spring 2017 Symposium at Duke: Novel Disconnections

Novel Disconnections Symposium

April 14, 2017

Ahmadieh Family Lecture Hall

​Does the novel acknowledge contemporary migration and refugee crises?  How, and in what ways do contemporary novels alter a narrative form arguably responsible for maintaining national differences? Given the novel’s traditional association with the rise of the modern nation-state and, more recently, with globalism in its various iterations, can novels shed light on the resurgence of neo-nationalism (Modi, Brexit, Trump, etc.)?  What role, if any, can the novel play for mobile or disparate communities? How does or will its form change accordingly?

Speakers

Nasser Mufti, University of Illinois at Chicago

Sunny Xiang, Yale University

Matthew Hart, Columbia University

Schedule

9:30-10:00         Coffee and breakfast snacks

10:00-10:15       Introduction

10:15-11:30       Nasser Mufti, “The Historical Novel in the Age of Reverse Development”

11:45-1:00         Sunny Xiang, “Incorporeal Inscriptions: Race and 

                            Ha Jin’s Documentary Style”

1:00-2:00           Buffet lunch 

2:00-3:15           Matthew Hart, "Where You Are:  Migration, Collective Narration,

                           and Chang-rae Lee"

3:15-3:30          Coffee and snacks

3:30-5:00          Roundtable: Ellen Rooney, Brown University;

                           Tim Bewes, Brown University;

                           John Marx, UC Davis; Lloyd Pratt, Oxford;

                          Nancy Armstrong, Duke University (chair)           

6:30                  Buffet/Reception