>
>From: "Hopkins, Chris" <[log in to unmask]>
>
>CFP Historicising the Historical Novel
>(for the refereed e-journal Working Papers on the Web: 
>http://www.shu.ac.uk/wpw/)
>
>'The term "historical novel" awakens some awkward connotations 
>nowadays. We think of the Count of Monte Cristo, of Ben-Hur, of
>various historical films; we picture adventure, intrigue, costumes, 
>heavy swaths of bright colors, overly theatrical language, a
>mixture of politics and love, and the reduction of events to the 
>level of petty individual emotions. . . For my part, I admit to
>loving historical novels with a passion. I do understand the 
>prejudice against this form of literature, but it is a prejudice' -
>from Leon Feuchtwanger's 'The Purpose of the Historical Novel', 1935 
>(this translation from the German  by John Ahouse).
>
>'Historical fiction as a genre often seems to be the product of bad 
>faith or guilty conscience, and the often formidable energies
>of the genre spring partly from an attempt to rationalise its own 
>apparent sins out of existence. A standing offense against both
>the autonomy of aesthetic form and the scientific integrity of 
>facts, historical fiction is a perennial embarrassment liable to
>generate many forms of critical inquiry - 'Historical Novel' article 
>by Richard Maxwell from Encyclopaedia of the Novel (Fitzroy
>Dearborn, London, 1998).
>
>
>The historical novel has, at various time and in different cultures 
>and contexts been seen as a classic European form, as a
>world-genre, as middlebrow distraction, as a form with the potential 
>for political critique, as a way of genuinely understanding
>the past, as a dangerous falsifier of national identities, and as an 
>important part of post-modern writing in the shape of
>'historiographical metafiction'. Essays are invited which 
>historicise the historical novel or discuss its relation to history, 
>in
>any of its varieties.
>
>The 'Historicising the Historical Novel' issue of Working Papers on 
>the Web is planned for publication in March 2006.  Abstracts
>of 400 words should be sent via e-mail to the editor Professor Chris 
>Hopkins ([log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]
>>  ) by June 1st 2005. Completed essays of 5-7000 words (using MLA 
>>style) will be due by 1 December 2005.
>
>Chris Hopkins
>Professor of English Studies
>Head of Humanities Research Centre
>Sheffield Hallam University
>Rm 12 Montgomery House
>Collegiate Campus
>Phone: 0114 225 4364
>E mail: [log in to unmask]

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