News Release
About the English Novel "The Origins of the English Novel, 1600-1740" will be the topic of a lecture at noon on Wednesday, April 17, in Shriver Hall on The Johns Hopkins University's Homewood campus, 3400 N. Charles St. in Baltimore. Michael McKeon, Board of Governors Professor of Literature at Rutgers University, will discuss the content of his book by the same name, published by The Johns Hopkins University Press. While some literature experts tie the origins of the novel to the rise of realism and the middle class, McKeon argues that the genesis of the novel lies in the great upheavals of secularization and reform that transformed early modern Europe between 1600 and 1740. The novel emerged, McKeon contends, as a cultural instrument designed to engage the theories of knowledge and social crises of the age. Originally published in 1988, the new 15th anniversary edition of the book will be available for sale and signing. McKeon attended Haverford College and Cambridge University, earning his bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago and his master's and doctorate from Columbia University. He has taught at Columbia and Boston universities and has held visiting professorships at Washington, Brandeis, and Princeton universities. At Rutgers, he was a professor from 1988 to 1990 and a distinguished professor from 1990 to 1995 before taking his current position. The author of several publications, McKeon won the 1987 James Russell Lowell Prize and the 1991-1992 Rutgers University Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Research. The lecture is cosponsored with The Johns Hopkins University Press and is one of the Wednesday Noon Series presented by The Johns Hopkins University Office of Special Events, now in its 36th season of cultural programming on the Homewood campus. Wednesday Noon Series events are open to the public and admission is free. For information, call the Office of Special Events at 410-516-7157.
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