Campus novel

{{Short description|Literary genre}} {{multiple issues| {{more footnotes needed|date=October 2017}} {{original research||date=April 2017}} }} thumb|First edition cover of ''The Professor's House'' by Willa Cather (1925), considered a predecessor of the 20th-century academic novel A '''campus novel''', also known as an '''academic novel''', is a novel whose main action is set in and around the campus of a university.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Dalton-Brown |first=Sally |date=2023 |title=A BA (Hons) in “Curb your Enthusiasm”? The Campus Novel Today |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jpcu.13213 |journal=The Journal of Popular Culture |language=en |volume=56 |issue=1 |pages=108–126 |doi=10.1111/jpcu.13213 |issn=1540-5931}}</ref> Academic novels typically center on professors or students (novels that focus on students may be termed varsity novels). Part of mainstream American fiction for decades, the genre in its current form dates back to the early 1950s.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Williams |first=Jeffrey J. |date=2012 |title=The Rise of the Academic Novel |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/8/article/484122 |journal=American Literary History |volume=24 |issue=3 |pages=561–589 |issn=1468-4365}}</ref>

== History == ''The Groves of Academe'' by Mary McCarthy, published in 1952, is often quoted as the earliest example, though literary critic Elaine Showalter points to C. P. Snow's ''The Masters'' from 1951. Several older novels have settings and characteristics similar to academic novels, such as Thomas Hardy's ''Jude the Obscure'' (1895), Willa Cather's ''The Professor's House'' (1925), Régis Messac's ''Smith Conundrum'' (first published between 1928 and 1931), and Dorothy L. Sayers's ''Gaudy Night'' (1935).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Showalter |first=Elaine |url=https://www.pennpress.org/9780812220858/faculty-towers/ |title=Faculty Towers: The Academic Novel and Its Discontents |website= |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |year=2009 |isbn=9780812220858 |language=en-US |access-date=2025-05-27}}</ref>

Many well-known campus novels, such as Kingsley Amis's ''Lucky Jim'' and those of David Lodge, are comic or satirical, often counterpointing intellectual pretensions and human weaknesses. Some, however, attempt a serious treatment of university life; examples include C. P. Snow's ''The Masters'', J. M. Coetzee's ''Disgrace'', and Philip Roth's ''The Human Stain.<ref name=":0" />''

Academic novels are usually told from the viewpoint of a faculty member (e.g., Richard Russo's ''Straight Man'') or the viewpoint of a student (e.g., Tom Wolfe's ''I Am Charlotte Simmons''). Novels such as Evelyn Waugh's ''Brideshead Revisited'' that focus on students rather than faculty are often considered to belong to a distinct genre, sometimes termed varsity novels.

A subgenre is the '''campus murder mystery''', where the closed university setting substitutes for the country house of Golden Age detective novels.<ref name=":0" /> Examples include Dorothy L. Sayers' ''Gaudy Night'', Edmund Crispin's ''Gervase Fen'' mysteries, Carolyn Gold Heilbrun's ''Kate Fansler'' mysteries and Colin Dexter's ''The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn''.

The university setting may be a real institution or a fictional university.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Jensen |first=Kelly |date=2024-08-28 |title=A History of The Campus Novel |url=https://bookriot.com/a-history-of-the-campus-novel/ |access-date=2026-05-27 |website=BOOK RIOT |language=en-US}}</ref>

== Themes == Campus novels exploit the fictional possibilities created by a closed environment of the university, with idiosyncratic characters inhabiting unambiguous hierarchies. They may describe the reaction of a fixed socio-cultural perspective (the academic staff) to new social attitudes (the new student intake).

== Examples == {{unreferenced section|date=January 2023}} * ''The Masters'' by C. P. Snow (1951) * ''The Groves of Academe'' by Mary McCarthy (1952) * ''Lucky Jim'' by Kingsley Amis (1954) * ''Pictures from an Institution'' by Randall Jarrell (1954) * ''Anglo-Saxon Attitudes'' by Angus Wilson (1956) * ''Pnin'' by Vladimir Nabokov (1957) * ''Purely Academic'' by Stringfellow Barr (1958) * ''A New Life'' by Bernard Malamud (1961) * ''Night and Silence Who Is Here?'' by Pamela Hansford Johnson (1963) <ref>{{Cite magazine |title=Books: Midsummer Night's Waking |url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,870301,00.html |magazine=Time |date=July 26, 1963 |url-access=subscription }}</ref> * ''Stoner'' by John Williams (1965) * ''The Sterile Cuckoo'' by John Nichols (1965) * ''Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me '' by Richard Fariña (1966) * ''Giles Goat-Boy'' by John Barth (1966) * ''Getting Straight'' by Ken Kolb (1967) * ''Other Men's Daughters'' by Richard G. Stern (1973) * ''The War Between the Tates'' by Alison Lurie (1974) * ''Porterhouse Blue'' by Tom Sharpe (1974) * ''Changing Places'' by David Lodge (1975) * ''The History Man'' by Malcolm Bradbury (1975) * ''The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn'' (The Morse Series) by Colin Dexter (1977) * ''The Professor of Desire'' by Philip Roth (1977) * ''The Rebel Angels'' by Robertson Davies (1981) * ''La Polka piquée'' by {{Ill|Maurice Couturier|fr}} (1982) * ''The Big U'' by Neal Stephenson (1984) * ''Small World'' by David Lodge (1984) * ''Breakers'' by Martin Walser (1985)<ref>{{cite books |last=Neuhaus |first=Stefan |year=2025 |chapter=Martin Walser: Brandung (1985) |editor1-last=Grugger |editor1-first=H. |editor2-last=Neuhaus |editor2-first=S. |title=Der Campusroman |language=de |publisher=J.B. Metzler |location=Berlin, Heidelberg |pages=357–364 |doi=10.1007/978-3-662-71865-0_38 }}</ref> * ''White Noise'' by Don DeLillo (1985) * ''Crossing to Safety'' by Wallace Stegner (1987) * ''The Rules of Attraction'' by Bret Easton Ellis (1987) * ''Nice Work'' by David Lodge (1988) * {{Ill|All Souls (Javier Marías novel)|lt=''Todas las almas (All Souls)''|es|Todas las almas}} by Javier Marías (1989) * ''Possession'' by A. S. Byatt (1990) * ''The Crown of Columbus'' by Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris (1991) * ''The Secret History'' by Donna Tartt (1992) * ''Tam Lin'' by Pamela Dean (1992) * ''Japanese by Spring'' by Ishmael Reed (1993) * ''Galatea 2.2'' by Richard Powers (1995) * ''Wonder Boys'' by Michael Chabon (1995) * ''Moo'' by Jane Smiley (1995) * ''Death Is Now My Neighbour'' (The Morse Series) by Colin Dexter (1996) * ''Making History'' by Stephen Fry (1996) * ''As She Climbed Across the Table'' by Jonathan Lethem (1997) * ''Straight Man'' by Richard Russo (1997) * ''Disgrace'' by J. M. Coetzee (1999) * ''The Human Stain'' by Philip Roth (2000) * ''Thinks ...'' by David Lodge (2001) * ''The Lecturer's Tale'' by James Hynes (2001) * ''Starter for Ten'' by David Nicholls (2003) * ''The Tatami Galaxy'' by Tomihiko Morimi (2004) * ''I Am Charlotte Simmons'' by Tom Wolfe (2004) * ''On Beauty'' by Zadie Smith (2005) * ''Indignation'' by Philip Roth (2008) * ''Invisible'' by Paul Auster (2009) * ''The Marriage Plot'' by Jeffrey Eugenides (2011) * ''The Art of Fielding'' by Chad Harbach (2011) * ''Death of the Black-Haired Girl'' by Robert Stone (2013) * ''Cow Country'' by Adrian Jones Pearson (2015) * ''If We Were Villains'' by M. L. Rio (2017) * ''Normal People'' by Sally Rooney (2018) * ''Bunny'' by Mona Awad (2019) * ''Ninth House'' by Leigh Bardugo (2019) * ''Real Life'' by Brandon Taylor (2020) * ''Love & Virtue'' by Diana Reid (2021)<ref>{{cite web |title=‘Love & Virtue’ wins 2022 MUD Literary Prize |url=https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2022/02/25/210592/love-virtue-wins-2021-mud-literary-prize/ |website=Books+Publishing |access-date=30 July 2024 |language=en-AU |date=25 February 2022}}<br />{{cite web |title=Love & Virtue (Diana Reid, Ultimo) |url=https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2021/07/27/190445/love-virtue-diana-reid-ultimo/ |website=Books+Publishing |access-date=30 July 2024 |language=en-AU |date=27 July 2021}}</ref> * ''Seesaw'' by Timothy Ogene (2021) * ''Come and Get It'' by Kiley Reid (2024)

== See also == {{Portal|Novels|Literature}} * School story * Bildungsroman * Dark academia

== Notes and references == {{reflist|30em}}

== Bibliography == * Anderson, Christian K. & John R. Thelin (2009). “Campus Life Revealed: Tracking Down the Rich Resources of American Collegiate Fiction.” Journal of Higher Education 80(1), 106-113. * Kenneth Womack: ''Academic Satire: The Campus Novel in Context'' in ''A Companion to the British and Irish Novel 1945-2000'' (Blackwell Publishing 2005, {{ISBN|1-4051-1375-8}}) * ''Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature''. Merriam-Webster 1995, {{ISBN|0-87779-042-6}} ([https://books.google.com/books?id=eKNK1YwHcQ4C&dq=%22campus+novel%22&pg=PA203 eingeschränkte Online-Version (Google Books)]) * McGurl, Mark. "The Program Era: Pluralisms in Postwar American Fiction." '' Critical Inquiry'' 32.1 (Autumn 2005): 102-109. * Showalter, Elaine. ''Faculty Towers: The Academic Novel and Its Discontents ''(Penn Press, 2005; {{ISBN|0-19-928332-X}}) * Carter, Ian. ''Ancient Cultures of Conceit: British University Fiction in the Post-War Years'' (Routledge, Chapman & Hall; 1990; {{ISBN|0-415-04842-7}}) * Philippe Chardin. ''Alma Mater - premier roman comique inspiré par l'université française'', Paris, Atlantica-Séguier, 2000.

== External links == * [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/oct/02/featuresreviews.guardianreview37 Edemariam A. 'Who's afraid of the campus novel?' ''Guardian'', 2 Oct 2004] * [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/may/08/classics.vladimirnabokov Lodge D. 'Exiles in a small world' ''Guardian'', 8 May 2004] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20070926143022/http://fds.oup.com/www.oup.co.uk/pdf/0-19-928332-X.pdf Showalter E. 'What I read and what I read for' & 'The Fifties: Ivory towers'] (from ''Faculty Towers: The Academic Novel and Its Discontents'') * [http://flavorwire.com/411025/the-50-greatest-campus-novels-ever-written Flavorwire. 'The Fifty Greatest Campus Novels Ever written.'] (Elizabeth Spiers, Editorial Director)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Campus Novel}} * Category:Education in popular culture Category:Literary genres