History of A Book Seminar

Stacked Books

The History of A Book Seminar is a running series of lectures and discussions about the various ways that works of criticism come into existence. While our presenters' books will arrive from the press polished and brilliant and free of sweat and tear stains, in this seminar authors take us behind the scenes to reveal the hard work that went into the project at each stage: original conception, dead ends and sustaining developments, selection and use of archival material, right down to the writing habits that worked best. Everyone is welcome, and we encourage graduate students to attend (whether you're just now thinking about how to think about writing a dissertation, or are ready to peek ahead to the process of putting together a successful monograph).

Past Seminars

Michael Gamer's gothic tale of the lost manuscript behind Re-Collections in Tranquility: Copyright and the Romantic Art of Self-Canonization.

Christopher GoGwilt explaining the development of his award-winning monograph, The Passage of Literature: Genealogies of Modernism in Conrad, Rhys, and Pramoedya (Oxford UP).

Maureen McLane discussing her recently published work, Balladeering, Minstrelsy, and the Making of British Romantic Poetry (Cambridge UP).

Alan Vardy describing the work that went into Constructing Coleridge: The Posthumous Life of the Author (Palgrave).

For more information, please contact Sarah Zimmerman or John Bugg.