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?