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The Global Novel: Mediations
Hours: M 5:05-7:45
Nancy Armstrong, Roberto Dainotto
Louis Althusser is known to have said that “ideology represents individuals’ imaginary relation to their real conditions of existence.” Assuming that statement is a pretty good fit for traditional literary realism as well, we feel it is time to rephrase this principle for the global novel which would go something like this: “the global novel represents individuals’ imaginary relation to forms of mediation.” Rather than refer to life beyond the page as one organized around the home, the workplace, the school, the legal system and so forth, the novels we have in mind aspire to live not only outside the language in which they were written but also beyond the printed page in film, television series, comic books, audiobooks, electronic games, and so forth. In that a good number of these novels quite literally attempt to escape the material confines of the medium, they require us to figur