Theory, Culture & Society E-Special Issue: Fiction & Social Theory – edited by David Beer

This special issue brings together a range of articles from the Theory, Culture & Society archive that directly explore the relations between fiction and social theory. Each article develops a different perspective on these relations yet they all share a common interest in probing at the different ways in which fiction can enrich and provoke our conceptual imaginations. These articles ask how theory can be used to understand or illuminate fiction, whilst also considering how theory can be extended, challenged or informed by fictional resources. The selected articles can be viewed in terms of three overlapping approaches. First, there are those that use fiction to extend the imagination of social theory. Second, are the articles that use fiction as a documentary resource and platform for theorizing. And, finally, there are those articles that use theory to reanimate and re-examine fictional forms. In exploring these three intersecting branches this e-special issue helps illustrate the different ways in which fiction and social theory might interweave in our thinking. The articles gathered here provide frameworks, ideas and resources through which the reader can continue to think imaginatively and creatively about the social world.