Collections

European Transnational Integration • Centres and Peripheries • Province / Periphery • Political novel • Central and Eastern Europe

European Centers and Peripheries in the Political Novel

When analyzing asymmetries between centers, semi-peripheries, and peripheries, literary scholars draw on various theoretical and methodological traditions. This collection of working papers aims to put special emphasis on examining Europe as a combined and uneven formation characterized by economic, social, cultural, and literary asymmetries. The papers investigate the question of what formal and textual features are common, if not typical, of literary capitals (centers) on the one hand and margins and peripheries on the other.

Wars • Historiography • Centres and Peripheries • Geopolitics • Cartography • 20th century • 21st century • Palestine

Literary Politics and Geopolitics

Today’s global political situation is characterised by wars, increasingly overt imperialist ambitions and rivalries, power struggles, and hegemonic conflicts over new spheres of influence. Colonial dependencies have also been revived, often manifesting as access to raw materials and licences for their unhindered extraction. The idea of a “new world order” based on globalisation, which was promoted until recently, has given way to a new combination of isolationism and imperialism. This brings us to the inevitable, and perhaps somewhat naïve, question: What role can literature play in this situation, which is admittedly painted in somewhat dystopian terms? Can it (still) serve as a register, a medium for recording and processing global conditions and interactions? Or do these ultimately transcend the scope of literature? Is it possible to record conditions in such a way that they can be perceived as changeable? Can the achievements of political novels be simply scaled up to a global framework? To put it bluntly: In our project, we assume that there is such a thing as contemporary political literature—but is there also such a thing as geopolitical literature?

Politics of literature • Political novel • Fiction • book club

Resources for Reading Groups

A key focus of the CAPONEU project has been to produce materials on political novels for community reading groups and to organize book clubs across Europe. This collection brings together resources and reports on those activities which will be useful for anyone who runs or attends a reading group.

Commitment • Centres and Peripheries • Nationalism • Capitalism • Democracy • Digital Modernism • Digitalisation • Technology • Digital Era • Fiction • Novel • 20th century • 21st century

The Political Novel in Europe and the Challenges of the Digital Era

This collection aims to explore the literary and political challenges the digital age poses for the genre of the novel. Without a doubt, it is having a profound impact on all aspects of the literary process, opening up a new context that redefines creative processes, reading practices, distribution methods, and critical reception. Digital issues and practices affect fundamental notions of literary studies. But how are these changes reflected in the novel itself? How has this new context redefined relations with the political sphere (if at all)? What kind of political novel is possible in the digital age?

Thinking and Writing

A collection concerning the links between political thought and the ways the political is written. This collection centres discussions with writers and translators on the politics of their work, and the role of writing in recording, reflecting and contesting past and present structures of power.

Political Discourse • Political novel • Political resistance

Thinking the 'Political'

This collection explores the role of political theory, literature and practice in transforming our understanding of ‘politics’ and ‘the political’ in the contemporary world. In recent years, dominant definitions of ‘politics’ have increasingly been questioned. Featuring work from a range of disciplines, including philosophy, literary studies and political theory, the collection explores the following questions: What is ‘the political’? Which aspects of life, and kinds of activity, count as ‘political’ today? How do new and diverse modes of political contestation challenge established ways of defining and doing politics? In short, what does it mean to ‘think the political’ today?

Politics of literature • Political novel

What is the Political Novel? Defining the Genre

This Collection brings together selected contributions to the first annual CAPONEU conference, which took place in Berlin from 27 to 29 September 2023. The participants discussed a variety of understandings of the political novel as a (tentative) genre. They combined approaches to defining the political novel that are characterised by genre theory with those that are shaped by the history of the genre, thus also paradigmatically illustrating this changeable category in relation to specific novels that have emerged in heterogeneous contexts. The Collection was published on the Open Research Europe platform (open access).