The sociology of novel – a few notes on methodology

In her widely acclaimed book, The Sociology of Literature (2023 2014), Sapiro demonstrates her methodological approach, capable of eschewing usual aporiae in the never-ending battle between internalist and externalist analyses of texts. According to her, there are three axes that shape any serious endeavor in the sociology of literature. Research in the field must engage with material conditions of literary production; furthermore, one cannot escape the sociology of the works, that is, representations that literary artworks convey, and finally, the conditions of artworks’ reception and appropriation are to be studied. If we accept these guidelines as applicable for the study of novels, particularly political novels, what criteria do we use to distinguish fictional works from political or sociological treatises? What epistemic value does we hope to discern from such works? Is the historical accuracy of given data about a particular political phenomenon sufficient to treat such novels as political? What narrative techniques make an artwork more politically credible? Starting from Felski’s (2008) theses on the uses of literature and drawing on insights from Livingston (2005) on the nature of narrative, as well as Carroll’s (2001) “narrative” definition of art, I will try to shed some light on these problems.