Novel thought: Towards a literary study of organization

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Novels espouse an epistemological freedom that is beyond even experimental forms of scholarly research and writing. Precisely this freedom makes novels so conducive to thought. Their enduring presence in organization studies demonstrates literary fiction’s power of conveying how things are, might be, or can be thought of; of inventing new ways of seeing; of enabling different vocabularies as well as staging and transmitting specific affects. In this paper, we trace the mutual ‘contamination’ between the novel and organization studies as well as discuss different modes of engaging prose fiction, drawing on Rancière’s ethical, representative and aesthetic regimes of art. With a special nod to Kafka’s novels and stories and also McCarthy’s Satin Island, we outline the contours of a literary study of organization and introduce the special themed section on ‘The Novel and Organization Studies’.
Original languageEnglish
JournalOrganization Studies
Volume40
Issue number12
Pages (from-to)1787-1803
Number of pages17
ISSN0170-8406
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01.12.2019

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Beyes Timon Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany and Copenhagen Business School, Denmark Costas Jana European University Viadrina, Germany Ortmann Günther University of Witten/Herdecke, Germany Timon Beyes, Leuphana Universitat Luneburg, Universitätsallee 1, Luneburg, 21335, Germany. Email: timon.beyes@leuphana.de 10 2019 0170840619874458 © The Author(s) 2019 2019 SAGE Publications This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License ( http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ ) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page ( https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage ). Novels espouse an epistemological freedom that is beyond even experimental forms of scholarly research and writing. Precisely this freedom makes novels so conducive to thought. Their enduring presence in organization studies demonstrates literary fiction’s power of conveying how things are, might be, or can be thought of; of inventing new ways of seeing; of enabling different vocabularies as well as staging and transmitting specific affects. In this paper, we trace the mutual ‘contamination’ between the novel and organization studies as well as discuss different modes of engaging prose fiction, drawing on Rancière’s ethical, representative and aesthetic regimes of art. With a special nod to Kafka’s novels and stories and also McCarthy’s Satin Island , we outline the contours of a literary study of organization and introduce the special themed section on ‘The Novel and Organization Studies’. fiction Kafka literature McCarthy organization theory organization Rancière the novel edited-state corrected-proof Funding The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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© The Author(s) 2019.

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