University or Universal? Revaluating the Academic Novel

The purpose of the article is to present the campus novel from an angle that would expose the qualities latent in a genre by pointing to the theme of conflict. The paper has been divided into three parts, each addressing one kind of conflict which can be distinguished from the generic pattern (the story about academics in the university setting). The analysed themes are recurrent in the campus novel – a town and gown row, a teacher-teacher conflict, and a clash between a teacher and a student. The conflicts are illustrated by works of David Lodge, Malcolm Bradbury and Kingsley Amis.