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The Bildungsroman: form and transformations

A conference hosted by the Novel Network at the University of Sydney, 22-25 November 2018

This conference will explore the past and present condition of the Bildungsroman, with its myriad transformations and diversifications not only in the novel proper but also in memoir, film and long-form television. It will bring together exciting work in disciplines often separated by periodising and disciplinary paradigms and gather experts in prose fiction, film and television from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries and from a range of language areas to concentrate on this key narrative form. The novel of the emotional and social development or formation of a young person as they learn to make their way in an often hostile world, the Bildungsroman ­was a key form taken by the European novel from the early 19th century. How has it made its way across transhistorical formations and transgeneric remediations?

Keynotes:

Nancy Armstrong, Gilbert, Louis & Edward Lehrman Professor of English, Duke

‘Why the Bildungsroman no longer works’

 

 

Joseph Litvak, Professor of English and Chair of Department, Tufts 

Black Comedy and the Bildungsroman:  Fran Ross’s Oreo’

 

 

Katie Trumpener, Emily Sandford Professor of Comparative Literature and English, Yale

‘Actors, Puppets, Girls: Little Women and the Collective Bildungsroman

 

 

The conference programme is now available here:

BILDUNGSROMAN PROGRAMME

Registration is now open.  You can register at this link:

REGISTRATION

Registration Details:

Early Bird registration, until September 29 2018
Student/unwaged: $80
Full registration: $175
Single day: $80
Late  registration: October 1- November 15 2018
Student/unwaged: $120
Full registration: $250
Single day: $100

 

(Image: from Taika Waititi’s Boy)