full name / name of organization:
New Deadline for Abstracts: The deadline has been pushed back from May 1 to
Friday, May 26.
Submissions are invited for a collection of critical essays tentatively
titled "Teaching the Novel in the (English) Major and Across the
Curriculum." Submissions by emergent as well as established scholars are
welcome. (An editor at one of the leading educational presses has shown
strong interest in the project.) <>As it stands, the collection will be
broken into five chapters, or sections: 1) English, 2) Humanities, 3)
Natural Sciences and Mathematics, 4) Social and Behavioral Sciences and,
5) Professional Studies.
Overview/rationale: Professors in many departments across the curriculum
are increasingly weaving the genre of the novel into their courses;
consequently, we’re seeing novels appearing in everything from
humanities courses (English, philosophy, religion, etc.) to classes in
the social and behavioral sciences (economics, sociology, political
science, psychology, etc.). This temptation and corresponding tendency
to assign what often prove to be unwieldy, resistant and yet rewarding
texts to teach leads to a number of related questions, some or all of
which you may choose to address in your essay:
* Why do we (in our respective disciplines) elect to teach novels?
* How do we teach them?
* What, exactly, do we have our students do with them?
* Which novels (and which teaching techniques associated with those
texts) cultivate the ways of knowing germane to understanding
issues and problems in our disciplines? Which historical novels,
for instance, help students better comprehend an era, event, or
issue, and which novels enable them to begin to appreciate
historiography and historical inquiry? Or, as another example from
another discipline, which novels (and which teaching techniques
associated with those texts) facilitate and cultivate the type of
perception necessary to appreciate what ecologist Aldo Leopold
described as the “land ethic”?
* How do novels help us as instructors achieve our objectives and
goals in our various courses and related disciplines?
* How can we make reading these works a truly novel, eventful, and
relevant experience for our students?
The purpose of this collection is to share with others in and outside of
our disciplines why and how we incorporate novels into our courses.
Thus, I am seeking a blend of conceptual and applicable/pedagogical
essays that speak directly and/or indirectly to the above questions from
various points of view/disciplines.
Paper abstracts (about 500 words) must be submitted by Friday, May 26, 2006.
Please send inquiries and submissions (preferably electronically in MS
word format) to Colin Irvine at irvinec_at_augsburg.edu
Colin Irvine, Ph.D.
Campus Box 59
2211 Riverside Ave.
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55454
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or write Jennifer Higginbotham: higginbj_at_english.upenn.edu
Received on Mon May 01 2006 - 08:46:44 EDT