On November 3, NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction hosted its 2017 fall symposium, The Novel & The Concrete, at Brown University. Featuring three speakers — Audrey Wasser, David Alworth, and Emilio Sauri — and a roundtable of four members of the Brown faculty (Tim Bewes, Ben Parker, Thangam Ravindranathan, and Melissa Clayton), the symposium explored the relationship between the novel, concreteness, and abstraction. In asking what we can gain from specifically considering the novel form alongside the concrete, this symposium initiated a productive discussion, which has been recapped. We are now able to provide video taken from the day of the symposium. Below, you can watch the three talks of the day, as well as the closing roundtable.
Symposium Introduction and Audrey Wasser: "Reading Macheray Reading: The Abstract and the Concrete in Literary Criticism”
David Alworth "Paratextual Art"
Emilio Sauri: "The Novel at the End of the World"
The Novel & The Concrete Roundtable