Digital Dystopia: Surveillance, Autonomy, and Social Justice in Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story

Willmetts, Simon

doi:10.1353/aq.2018.0017

Cited by 8 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…As Seeger and Davison-Vecchione (2019: 17) suggest, "one could see [dystopian fiction] as extrapolating from empirical observations of present conditions in a manner which is fully consonant with the aims of sociology." Dystopian authors have been described as "symptomologists" (Nebioğlu 2020: 73) who diagnose issues with the present (Lyon 2018;Willmetts 2018). In order to imagine a society, which is better or worse than our own, utopian and dystopian authors diagnose issues with the current society-whether good or bad-(archaeology), consider what society humans want to live in (ontology), and then create an imagined society (architecture) to inspire the reader with the desire to effect positive change.…”

Section: Speculative Fiction and Sociologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Marks (2017) shows that dystopian fiction depicts the feelings associated with being monitored and controlled through its formal properties: portrayal of character and setting, world building, narrative voice (first person, third person, free indirect discourse), tropes (novum, cognitive estrangement, intertextuality), and language and imagery. Since Marks' first article on utopian and dystopian fiction and surveillance studies in 2005, there has been more research published on utopian and dystopian fiction in this field; most notably, book chapters and articles by Birgit Däwes (2020), Victoria Flanagan (2014), Felix Hasse (2020, Brian Jarvis (2019), Mike Nellis (2009), Virginia Pignagnoli (2017), andSimon Willmetts (2018).…”

Section: Speculative Fiction and Surveillance Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Speculative Fiction, Sociology, and Surveillance Studies: Towards a Methodology of the Surveillance Imaginary

Hinchliffe

2021

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Utopian theorists often speak about the merits of reading utopian fiction in order to reimagine and rebuild a better world, but dystopian fiction is often overlooked. This is, in my view, misguided because dystopian fiction, like utopian fiction, diagnoses issues with the present, inspires activism and resistance, and, in the twenty-first century, often presents ideas of how to effect positive change through collective activism. As speculative literary genres concerned with world-building, utopian and dystopian fiction have inherent sociological concerns. These texts can therefore be utilised by sociologists and other researchers beyond the arts and humanities. Speculative fiction is important to the field of surveillance studies not only because surveillance is a major theme in these literary texts but also because their formal properties provide us with the language, imagery, and feelings associated with being under surveillance. Twenty-first-century utopian and dystopian fiction has not been thoroughly examined by surveillance scholars. Analysis of utopian and dystopian fiction in this field has also focused on texts set in, and written by authors from, the global north. Considering the plethora of dystopian novels in and beyond the global north published in recent years that discuss surveillance, the neglect of the study of these texts to date is an oversight.

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Section: Speculative Fiction and Sociologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Speculative Fiction and Surveillance Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Speculative Fiction, Sociology, and Surveillance Studies: Towards a Methodology of the Surveillance Imaginary

Hinchliffe

2021

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Monstrous Technology in Thomas Pynchon’s Bleeding Edge : The Internet as Terror and Transformation

Šalamoun

2023

Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction

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The cultural turn in intelligence studies

Willmetts¹

2019

Intelligence and National Security

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This article explores an emerging "cultural turn" in intelligence studies, which, if fully realized, could entail the expansion of the discipline to include new methodologies and theories, and a more integrative understanding of historical causality that locates intelligence agencies within the widersocio-cultural domain they inhabit. It has two parts. The firstexpands upon what I mean by a new 'integrative' understanding of historical causality. The second explores three areas of interest for intelligence scholars where the "cultural turn" has clear and important implications: the study of secrecy, publicity, and "mentalities". In recent years a new wave of scholarship, focusing upon the representation of secret intelligence services in various media, has added new vitality to the discipline of intelligence studies. 1 It is tempting, therefore, to identify this topical interest in the popular mediation of intelligence agencies as the titular 'cultural turn' of this article, and leave it at that. But topicality alone cannot constitute a disciplinary 'turn'. At stake in this expansion of the discipline to include a consideration of 'culture' is something much more fundamental than simply a question of what topics are permissible. In this article I will argue that two conditions are necessary for a fully fledged cultural turn in intelligence studies: the first is an openness to new methodologies and theoretical paradigms, often borrowed from other disciplines, and in particular from the fields of cultural studies, literary theory and the philosophy of history. The second is a new understanding of historical causality that is integrative, recognising that intelligence, as with the rest of the political domain, 'does not constitute itself independent of and external to societybut is a place of almost continuous sociopolitical interaction.' Intelligence scholars, to borrow Steven Pincus and William Novak's wording, 'should not assume that their chosen area of inquiry can be studied abstracted from other elements of historical experience.' 2 Nor, it should be added, are many of those other elements of historical experience entirely abstracted from the history of secret intelligence. This article is therefore not intended as a comprehensive literature review of recent cultural studies of intelligence, though it does identify what this author considers some of the more significant works that assume one or both of the conditions described above. Nor is it a purely descriptive account of a 'cultural turn' in intelligence studies that has already occurred. Rather, it seeks to extrapolate from an emerging tendency within the field, a nascent cultural turn if you will, still in the making, in order to outline some guiding principles for its future development, as well as explore some of its implications for the study of intelligence. There are two sections to this article. The first expands upon what I mean by a new 'integrative' understanding of historical causality, and contrasts it with traditional historical approaches to...

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Digital Dystopia: Surveillance, Autonomy, and Social Justice in Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story

Cited by 8 publications

References 13 publications

Speculative Fiction, Sociology, and Surveillance Studies: Towards a Methodology of the Surveillance Imaginary

Speculative Fiction, Sociology, and Surveillance Studies: Towards a Methodology of the Surveillance Imaginary

Monstrous Technology in Thomas Pynchon’s Bleeding Edge : The Internet as Terror and Transformation

The cultural turn in intelligence studies

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