A Symposium on the State of the Literary Ecosystem

Please mark your calendar! You are invited to "The Life of the Novel in a Post-Text World: A Symposium on the State of the Literary Ecosystem", Thursday, March 19th, through Friday, March 20th, on the campus of Duke University. The symposium will feature keynote speaker Dan Sinykin as he presents "Big Fiction: How Conglomerization Changed the Publishing Industry and American Literature" along with "Editors/Publishers," "Critics," "Scholars," panels, and "A Reading and Q&A - Creative Writers."

Professor Mesha Maren began developing this symposium through a series of conversations with Nancy Armstrong in November 2024. Since the fall of 2024, the literary ecosystem eroded at a steady pace through the loss of book coverage in newspapers, the conglomeration of publishing houses, and the incursion of AI. Maren has developed this symposium as a countermeasure to these developments and as space for conversation and community building for anyone who loves literature.