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The Novel and Labor

  • Friday, May 1, 2026 - 9:00am to 5:00pm

Kelly Writer’s House, room 202

 


 THE NOVEL AND LABOR WORKSHOP

May 1st, Kelly Writer’s House, room 202.

 

9.00-10.00 Novel & Labor on the Plantation 

 

Mariana Akawi (University of Pennsylvania) & Jack Fixa (UC Irvine) 

Comments & Chair: Yoon Sun Lee (Wellesley) 

 

10.15-11.15 “A mouth, a milking-pail, and a threshing machine”: Reproductive Labors in the Novel 

 

Ronny Litvack-Katzman (Harvard) & Lisa Koyuki Smith (The Graduate Center, CUNY) 

Comments & Chair: Lilith Todd (University of Pennsylvania) 

 

11.15-11.45 Coffee Break 

 

11.45-12.45 Home Factories in the Novel 

 

Ashley Cullina (Yale) & Eileen Ying (University of Pennsylvania) 

Comments & Chair: David Kurnick (Rutgers) 

 

12.45-1.30 Lunch Break

 

1.30-2.30 Unusual Forms for the Novel & Labor 

 

Brandon Rushton (University of Notre Dame) & Ruoxi Zhu (University of Pennsylvania)

Comments & Chair: Arielle Zibrak (University of Wyoming)  

 

2.45.-3.45 Numbing & Sanitizing: Creative Labor & the Neoliberal Novel 

 

Yoojung Chun (Harvard) & Rachael Mulvihill (Carnegie Mellon University) 

Comments & Chair: Dora Zhang (UC Berkeley)  

 

  

5-7 PUBLIC PANEL:  THE NOVEL AND REPRODUCTIVE LABOR

May 1st, Fisher-Bennett Hall, room 401

See here for more details https://www.english.upenn.edu/events/2026/05/01/novel-and-labor-public-p...

Lilith Todd, "Mary Wollstonecraft's Weaning Forms." 

Dora Zhang, "Reproducing People: On Types and Stereotypes."

Arielle Zibrak, "The Destructive Imagination of the Eugenic Novel Heroine." 

DINNER FOR WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS AT 4506 Chester Ave.

 

 

Saturday, May 2nd 

Fisher Bennett Hall, Room 222

See here for more details https://www.english.upenn.edu/events/2026/05/02/novel-and-labor-day-2

10.00-11.00 Labor & the Novel in a State of Emergency 

Michael Williamson (Binghamton University) & Xavier Xin (University of Pennsylvania) 

Comments & Chair: Julia Alekseyeva (University of Pennsylvania)

 

11.15-12.00 Round Up (Tina Lupton, Chair)