Politics and Literature at the Turn of the Millennium . By Michael Keren.

Abstract

Michael Keren’s new monograph offers detailed individual readings of 13 contemporary novels clustered around the turn of the millennium. It also uses these readings to advance a broad argument about the merits of applying analysis of literary novels to research in the social sciences. Keren is a social scientist – a Professor of Political Science – who took his BA in Israel (where he was born) and his PhD in the USA, and who is now based in Canada at the University of Calgary. Unsurprisingly, Politics and Literature at the Turn of the Millennium focuses on ‘world politics’, and the selection of novels it works through is compellingly diverse. Keren’s analysis of these texts comes together to make a strong argument for the potential of literary analysis to expose ‘hidden dimensions that may not reveal themselves in a straightforward empirical investigation’ (p. 9). Keren locates his work within a wider ‘aesthetic turn’ in the social sciences around the turn of the millennium. He outlines a series of major societal issues or ‘problems facing the world at the turn of the millennium’, which ‘seemed too complex, contingent, and unpredictable to be comprehended and solved by theories, typologies, and data-gathering services’ (pp. 6–7). Additionally, he points to fears around ‘Y2K discourse’ and the global political fallout of 9/11 as key exacerbations of this condition of contingency. Literature, arts, film, and other aesthetic representations have had increased value in the social sciences, Keren argues, but he makes claims for the particular merits of the novel. Not only, he suggests, can the novel provide insight into the human contingency of empirical analysis but also it can ‘moderate’ it: ‘the novel not only provides a special kind of knowledge but also a sense of moderation over the knowledge we hold on to, often with great zeal’ (pp. 9–10). This is an exciting idea, which moves beyond the idea of simply combining qualitative and quantitative investigation, though one could argue that it isn’t exclusive to the novel form: film or television narratives could surely offer something similar. In fact, given that David Simon’s television series The Wire (2002–2008) has, famously, been part of the sociology curriculum at Harvard (and many other universities around the world) this feels like an omission. Nevertheless, Keren’s readings have real substance and the benefits of his approach can also be reversed in the sense that, while he clearly states his intention to derive insight into contemporary politics through analysis of novels, we can also gain insight into debates about contemporary fiction through his political science lens – particularly around political allegory and contemporary political fiction. For example, by emphasizing the potential for analysis of novels to ‘moderate’ empirical analysis, Keren’s approach could provide a new dimension to polarized debates around the ‘9/11 novel’. Where some literary critics such as Richard Gray, Michael Rothberg, and Pankaj Mishra have criticized early 9/11 novels that have ‘domesticated’ the crisis, others such as John Duvall, Bruce Marzec, and Catherine Morley have dismissed the idea that novels should be obliged to make explicit political statements. Keren’s view that novels build on other kinds of political knowledge and inquiry offers a compelling possibility to challenge or move beyond this polarization.