Literature and Complicity; Then and Now by Adam Kelly and Will Norman

In their introduction to the special issue on “Complicity in Post-1945 Literature: Theory, Aesthetics, Politics”, literary scholars Adam Kelly and Will Norman identify how, in modern-day society, complicity denotes how individuals are folded into structures that cause harm, and they argue that this complex relationship is correlated with the spread of global capitalism. In order to properly discuss and identify complicity in such a pervasive form, they historicise the concept and then turn to Roberto Bolaño’s novel 2666 as a case study. 

In their description, the Holocaust functions as a waypoint in the recognition and theorization of complicity. The authors point out that the major advances on the concept came from scholars, such as Hannah Arendt, Theodor Adorno, Jean-Paul Sartre, who rejected disciplinary boundaries and combined various disciplines such as sociology, philosophy, political science, history and literature. Kelly and Norman focus in particular on the role literature plays in forming Arendt’s view on complicity, who has a “deep pedagogical investment in the power of literary representation as a pathway to the understanding of situated social experience” (681). In their analysis of 2666, the authors “explore the variety of ways in which ideas of complicity shaped literary history as it has developed since the mid-twentieth century, and in the process became available to thought in new and distinctive ways.” (682). As they put forward, there is often a geographical bias in complicity studies. By looking at Bolaño’s novel, they strive to balance this by uncovering the forces that intertwine with capital class relations in Mexico and elsewhere. 

Drawing on the work of various writers and thinkers, such as Jessica Copley, Wendy Brown and Maurizio Lazzarato, Kelly and Norman explain the journal issue’s aim to unravel, at least in part, how assumptions of “unencumbered agency” and “free will” are entangled with neoliberal thought about ethics and responsibility. In light of Annie McClanahan’s work, they propose that a diagnosis shift may be required to discern how particular groups of subjects may be more, or less, involved in the complicity dilemma. The emergence of post-neoliberalism and its associated modern “populism” may change our thinking about complicity.

Author of this entry: Anne van Buuren

Kelly, Adam and Will Norman. “Literature and Complicity: Then and Now” Comparative Literature Studies, vol. 56, no. 4, 2019, pp. 673-692.