Distant Reading, Graphs - Maps - Trees: Ab, Atlas of the European Novel 18, The Bourgeois: Between, Signs Taken For Wonders
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Nanni Moretti, Bruce Robbins, Silvia Nono, Fredric Jameson
Franco moretti large scale dynamics in the literary field
Franco Moretti (born 1950 in Sondrio) is an Italian literary scholar, trained as a Marxist critic, whose work focuses on the history of the novel as a "planetary form". He is currently a senior advisor at EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland. He was Danily C. and Laura Louise Bell Professor and Professor of Comparative Literature in the Department of English (and, by courtesy, of German Studies) at Stanford University in California, where he also founded the Center for the Study of the Novel and the Literary Lab. Moretti has written seven books, Signs Taken for Wonders (1983), The Way of the World (1987), Modern Epic (1995), Atlas of the European Novel, 1800–1900 (1998), Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for a Literary History (2005), Distant Reading (2013), and The Bourgeois (2013). His recent work is notable for importing, not without controversy, quantitative methods from the social sciences into domains that have traditionally belonged to the humanities. To date, his books have been translated into fifteen languages.
Franco Moretti at the Institute for World Literature, University of Lisbon: "Patterns," 1 July 2015
Biography
Moretti has edited a five-volume encyclopedia of the novel, entitled Il Romanzo (2001 - 2003), featuring articles by a wide range of experts on the genre from around the world. It is available in a two-volume English language edition (Princeton UP, 2006).
Moretti earned his doctorate in modern literature from the University of Rome in 1972, graduating summa cum laude. He was professor of comparative literature at Columbia University before being appointed to the Danily C. and Laura Louise Bell Professorship at Stanford University. There, he founded the Stanford Center for the Study of the Novel. He has given the Carpenter Lectures at the University of Chicago, the Gauss Seminars in Criticism at Princeton, and the Beckman Lectures at the University of California-Berkeley. In 2006, he was named to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He also has been a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. He is a frequent contributor to the New Left Review and a member of Retort, a Bay Area-based group of radical intellectuals. He is also a scientific adviser to the French Ministry of Research.
He is the brother of Italian filmmaker and Palme d'Or-winner Nanni Moretti. He played roles in three films directed by his brother: The Defeat (La sconfitta, 1973, short), Pâté de bourgeois (1973, short), and I Am Self Sufficient (Io sono un autarchico, 1976).
Books
Interpretazioni di Eliot. Roma: Savelli. 1975.
Letteratura e ideologie negli anni trenta inglesi. Bari: Adriatica. 1976.
Signs Taken for Wonders: Essays in the Sociology of Literary Forms. Translated by Susan Fischer; David Forgacs; David Miller. London: NLB: Verso Editions. 1983. ISBN 0860910644.
Il romanzo di formazione. [Milano]: Garzanti. 1986.
Segni e stili del moderno. Torino: Einaudi. 1987. ISBN 8806593986.
The Way of the World: The Bildungsroman in European Culture. London: Verso. 1987. ISBN 0860911594.
Opere mondo: saggio sulla forma epica dal Faust a Cent'anni di solitudin. Torino: Einaudi. 1994. ISBN 8806135457.
The Modern Epic: The World-System from Goethe to García Márquez. London, New York: Verso. 1996. ISBN 1859849342.
Atlante del romanzo europeo, 1800-1900. Torino: G. Einaudi. 1997. ISBN 8806141325.
Atlas of the European novel, 1800-1900. London, New York: Verso. 1998. ISBN 1859848834.
Il romanzo. Torino: G. Einaudi. 2003. ISBN 8806152904.
Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for a Literary History. London, New York: Verso. 2005. ISBN 1844670260.
The Novel. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. 2006. ISBN 0691049475.
Lee, Richard E.; Moretti, Franco (2011). Immanuel Wallerstein and the Problem of the World. Duke University Press Books. ISBN 9780822348481.
Distant Reading. London: Verso. 2013. ISBN 9781781680841.
The Bourgeois: Between History and Literature. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Verso. 2013. ISBN 9781781680858.
Selected Journal Articles
Flores D'Arcais, Paolo; Moretti, Franco (March 1, 1976). "Paradoxes of the Italian Political Crisis". New Left Review. 0 (96): 35.
"Paradoxes of the Italian Political Crisis". Genre. 15: 7. Spring 1982.
"The Dialectic of Fear". New Left Review. 0 (126): 67. November 1982.
"The Comfort of Civilization". Representations (12): 115–139. October 1985.
"The Moment of Truth". New Left Review. 0 (159): 39. September 1986.
"The Spell of Indecision". New Left Review. 0 (164): 27. July 1987.
"Words Words Words: A Reply to Tony Pinkney". New Left Review. 0 (167page=127). January 1988.
"Modern European Literature: A Geographical Sketch". New Left Review. 0 (206): 86. July 1994.
"Narrative Markets, ca. 1850". Review (Fernand Braudel Center). 20 (2): 151–174. April 1997.
"Structure, Change, and Survival: A Response to Winthrop-Young". Diacritics. 29 (2): 41–42. 1999.
"The Slaughterhouse of Literature". Modern Language Quarterly. 61 (1): 207–228. 2000.
"Conjectures on World Literature". New Left Review. 0 (1): 54. January 2000.
"'New York Times' Obituaries". New Left Review. 0 (2): 104. March 2000.
"MoMA 2000—The Capitulation". New Left Review. 0 (4): 98. July 2000.
"Markets of the Mind". New Left Review. 0 (5): 111. September 2000.
"Planet Hollywood". New Left Review. 0 (9): 90. May 2001.
"More Conjectures". New Left Review. 0 (20): 73. March 2003.
"Graphs, Maps, Trees". New Left Review. 0 (24): 67. November 2003.
"Graphs, Maps, Trees—2". New Left Review. 0 (26): 79–103. March 2004.
"Graphs, Maps, Trees—3". New Left Review. 0 (28): 43–63. July 2004.
"The end of the beginning: A reply to Christopher Prendergast (Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for a Literary History)". New Left Review (41): 71. September 2006.
"Cartes". Romantisme (4): 11. 2007.
"The novel: History and Theory". New Left Review (52): 111–124. July 2008.
"Style, Inc. Reflections on Seven Thousand Titles (British Novels, 1740-1850)". Critical Inquiry. 36 (1pages=134-158). 2009.
