ABSTRACT
FRANCO MORETTI (B. 1950) HAS BEEN a professor of English and compara-tive literature at Stanford University since 2000. He previously held positions at Columbia University and at Italian universities. His main area of study is the novel and the way this genre has evolved and spread around the world. Moretti is an unconventional literary scholar who seeks to explain the uses of certain genres in society by means of both statistical methods and a well-developed analytical grip on the literary texts themselves. This approach is also a key element of his major edited work, The Novel .
