ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that during the period 1989–2016, writers, reviewers, and scholars expressed doubts about the usefulness of exploring the relationship between politics and the novel. This period, which the chapter suggests might be called the long 2000s, was also characterized by a turn away from politics on the left, as neoliberal and third-way approaches seemed to offer a centrist middle ground that would not necessitate political agitation. Reading works of literary journalism by Jonathan Franzen and James Wood alongside works of literary scholarship by Stephen Best, Sharon Marcus, and Rita Felski, the chapter argues that literary critics and scholars during the long 2000s advocated for a depoliticization of literature and literary culture that echoed the depoliticization of the left during the same period. The chapter ultimately argues that the post-2016 moment sees a resurgence of interest in the political, both in literary scholarship and in publicly celebrated works of literature, despite the continued dominance of the methods and evaluative claims issued by scholars and critics of the long 2000s.
