What does literary realism look like in the 21st century—and what can it do? In episode 80 of the Podcast for Social Research, recorded live at Liz’s Book Bar in Brooklyn, BISR faculty Paige Sweet sat down with fellow faculty and debut novelist Joseph Earl Thomas plus special guests, writers Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah and Vinson Cunningham, to talk about what it means, what it takes, and what it feels like to represent social reality in contemporary fiction. In novels that test the boundaries of realism, traditionally conceived—borrowing techniques from autofiction, speculative fiction, dystopia, satire, and academic non-fiction—Thomas (God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer), Adjei-Brenyah (Chain-Gang All-Stars), and Cunningham (Great Expectations) get beneath the detailed depiction of everyday life to discuss, among other things, the world-building that happens in every act of writing; how fiction can serve as a testing ground for theoretical commitments; the carceral nature of our social institutions and their ripple effects through our intimate lives; the violence that goes on under the guise of pleasure; and how to feel and depict life as precious in even the most devastating and dehumanizing conditions. Persons and things touched upon include: the US Constitution, bell hooks, Gayatri Spivak, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Henry James, Solmaz Sharif, Saidiya Hartman, Goodreads, love, looking, “boundaries,” and beauty.

This episode was produced by Ryan Lentini.