AcknowledgmentsMark Spilka and Caroline McCracken-FlesherPreliminariesI. The New SeriesPoetics PanelMarianna Torgovnick"The Present and Future States of Novel Criticism": A Hopeful OverviewMark Spilka"Still Towards a Poetics of Fiction?": No—And Then Again YesDon H. BialostoskyBooth's Rhetoric, Bakhtin's Dialogics and the Future of Novel CriticismBernard DuyfhuizenMimesis, Authority, and Belief in Narrative Poetics: Toward a Transmission Theory for a Poetics of FictionRichard Pearce"The Present and Future States of Novel Criticism": Our Two-Headed ProfessionDaniel R. SchwarzThe Case for a Humanistic PoeticsII. Four PrecursorsRoy PascalNarrative Fictions and Reality: A Comment on Frank Kermode's The Sense of an EndingTerrence DoodyDon Quixote, Ulysses, and the Idea of RealismNancy ArmstrongThe Rise of Feminine Authority in the NovelSteven CohanFigures beyond the Text: A Theory of Readable Character in the NovelIII. The ConferenceThe EditorsWhy the Novel Matters: A Postmodern PerplexKeynote AddressDavid LodgeThe Novel Now: Theories and PracticesThe Novel as Subjective ModeLeo BersaniFlaubert's EncyclopedismKaja SivlermanToo Early/Too Late: Subjectivity and the Primal Scene in Henry JamesAlan SingerThe Voice of History/The Subject of the NovelThe Novel as Ethical ParadigmPatricia Meyer SpacksThe Novel as Ethical ParadigmRobert ScholesThe Novel as Ethical Paradigm?Daniel R. SchwarzThe Ethics of Reading: The Case for Pluralistic and Transactional ReadingThe Novel as Cultural DiscourseGeorge LevineThe Novel as Scientific Discourse: The Example of ConradKhachig TololyanDiscoursing with Culture: The Novel as InterlocutorCharles AltieriFinnegans Wake as Modernist HistoriographyThe Novel as Therapeutic DiscourseJoseph GoldThe Function of Fiction: A Biological ModelMurray M. SchwartzBeyond Fantasy: The Novel as PlaySusan Rubin SuleimanPlaying and ModernityDiscussionThe Novel as Psychosocial DesignPeter BrooksThe Tale vs. The NovelRobert CaserioMobility and Masochism: Christine Brooke-Rose and J.G. BallardNancy K. MillerFeminist Writing and the History of the NovelThe Novel as Narrative ProcessRachel Blau DuPlessisFeminist Narrative in Virginia WoolfElizabeth Deeds ErmarthConspicuous Construction: or, Kristeva, Nabokov, and the Anti-Realist CritiqueThe Windup SessionMarianna TorgovnickDid We Meet Your Expectations?DiscussionContributorsIndex