HUMS 060, Novel Novels

Course Description:

Stream of consciousness. Metafiction. Intertextuality. Typographic experimentation. These are some of the innovative narrative techniques that authors have used to push the boundaries of fiction over time. Why does literary innovation happen? How has the development of fiction been influenced by developments in other fields such as psychology, art, philosophy, or physics? What does it mean to say that a novel is novel? This course addresses such questions by taking an interdisciplinary approach to looking closely at several innovative novels from the early twentieth century to the present. As we move from modernism to postmodernism and on to the present moment, we not only explore the ways that novels may engage creatively with other fields but also how they are in dialogue with literary history itself.

Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration required; see under First-Year Seminar Program: https://yalecollege.yale.edu/academics/preregistration-applications-and-preference-selection#FRSM

Fulfills HU distribution requirement. 

Led by:

Professor Brianne Bilsky is the Dean of Berkeley College and a Lecturer in the English Department.  She earned her Bachelor of Arts in English from Washington and Jefferson College and her Ph.D., also in English, from Stanford University. Her teaching and research interests include literature and war; rhetoric and composition; media and information theory; and pedagogy. Prior to Yale, Dean Bilsky, was an assistant professor of English at the United States Military Academy in West Point, NY and comes to Yale with experience advising and mentoring undergraduates.  As a dean and administrator at Washington and Jefferson, she worked extensively with first-year students making the transition to college, created a peer-mentoring program, and prepared students for competitive national fellowships. And as a member of the Washington and Jefferson faculty, she taught in a first-year program that created and strengthened links between students’ residential and academic environments.