Why The Novel Matters: A Postmodern Perplex

Preliminaries / Mark Spilka And Caroline Mccracken-flesher -- I. The New Series : Poetics Panel -- The Present And Future States Of Novel Criticism : A Hopeful Overview / Marianna Torgovnick -- Still Towards A Poetics Of Fiction? : No -- And Then Again Yes / Mark Spilka -- Booth's Rhetoric, Baktin's Dialogics And The Future Of Novel Criticism / Don H. Bialostosky -- Mimesis, Authority, And Belief In Narrative Poetics : Toward A Transmission Theory For A Poetics Of Fiction / Bernard Duyfhuizen -- The Present And Future States Of Novel Criticism : Our Two-headed Profession / Richard Pearce -- The Case For A Humanistic Poetics / Daniel R. Schwarz -- Ii. Four Precursors -- Narrative Fictions And Reality : A Comment On Frank Kermode's The Sense Of An Ending / Roy Pascal -- Don Quixote, Ulysses, And The Idea Of Realism / Terrence Doody -- The Rise Of Feminine Authority In The Novel / Nancy Armstrong -- Figures Beyond The Text : A Theory Of Readable Character In The Novel / Steven Cohan. Iii. The Conference -- Why The Novel Matters : A Postmodern Perplex / The Editors -- Keynote Address -- The Novel Now : Theories And Practices / David Lodge -- The Novel As Subjective Mode -- Flaubert's Encyclopedism / Leo Bersani -- Too Early/too Late : Subjectivity And The Primal Scene In Henry James / Kaua Silverman -- The Voice Of History/the Subject Of The Novel / Alan Singer -- The Novel As Ethical Paradigm -- The Novel As Ethical Paradigm / Patrica Meyer Spacks -- The Novel As Ethical Paradigm? / Roabert Scholes -- The Ethics Of Reading : The Case For Pluralistic And Transactional Reading / Daniel R. Schwarz -- The Novel As Cultural Discourse / The Novel As Scientific Discourse : The Example Of Conrad / George Levine -- Discoursing With Culture : The Novel As Interlocutor / Khachig T. The Novel As Therapeutic Discourse -- The Function Of Fiction : A Biological Model / Joseph Gold -- Beyond Fantasy : The Novel As Play / Murray M. Schwartz -- Playing And Modernity / Susan Rubin Suleiman -- The Novel As Psychosocial Design -- The Tale Vs. The Novel / Peter Brooks -- Mobility And Masochism : Christine Brooke-rose And J.g. Ballard / Robert Caserio -- Feminist Writing And The History Of The Novel / Nancy K. Miller -- The Novel As Narrative Process / Rachel Blau Duplessis -- Feminist Narrative In Virginia Woolf -- Conspicuous Construction : Or Kristeva, Nabokov, And The Anti-realist Critique / Elizabeth Deeds Emarth -- The Windup Session -- Did We Meet Your Expectations? / Mariana Torgovnick. Mark Spilka And Caroline Mccracken-flesher, Editors. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.