Introduction: reading and writing the economic present Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • 2015 Taylor & Francis. This introduction to the issue offers an overview of current debates on neoliberalism as it relates to the contemporary novel. Distinguishing it from the novel of globalisation and the cosmopolitan novel, we suggest that the neoliberal novel is one particularly attuned to the economic rationalities of its time; it signals an attention to the ways novels circulate in an economic and geopolitical field and a consideration of the apparatus that structures the exchange and distribution of texts. We argue that the neoliberal novel is as much about methods and priorities of reading as it is about mimesis, thematics, or content. We also consider the way that, in addition to making visible the transformation of neoliberal economic values into cultural norms, the neoliberal novel is implicated in forms of power and the consent they require. Rather than seeing the multiple paths of the contemporary novel as signs of its superfluity or its capitulation to capital, this special issue attends to how this multiplicity of purpose demonstrates a response to the capacious mobility of neoliberalism itself.

published proceedings

  • TEXTUAL PRACTICE

altmetric score

  • 1.35

author list (cited authors)

  • Johansen, E., & Karl, A. G.

citation count

  • 5

complete list of authors

  • Johansen, Emily||Karl, Alissa G

publication date

  • February 2015