Posted by Sascha Pöhlmann on 2025-11-05

Guest editor: Ali Dehdarirad (University of Rome, Sapienza)

In 1987 Tom LeClair formulated the concept of the “systems novel,” a generic category that included highly erudite works that “master the time, the methods of fiction, and the reader.” He suggested that such works help readers challenge the dominant cultural systems within which they find themselves living. Although useful as a generic category by which we can classify and interpret literary works, this classification was originally reserved for a select group of white, male American postmodernists, with the notable exception of Ursula K. Le Guin. LeClair maintained that, because women and non-white novelists have not historically enjoyed white males’ privilege of exploring the entirety of American culture, they have been denied the vantage point to envision the United States or the world from a position of full membership.

Although a few scholars have attempted to reinterpret the notion of the systems novel in the years since LeClair’s original theorization, little attention has been paid to the wide diversity of writers engaged in (re)shaping the form (Staes 2021; Leith 2022). Interestingly, some critics argued that 9/11 marked the end of a particular kind of “systems novel”—one that positioned America as the center of the world and whiteness as the default (Freeman 2011). Nevertheless, the new millennium has seen a rise in the production of ambitious, large-scale fiction by authors from historically marginalized backgrounds, addressing the concerns and priorities of myriad underrepresented groups of society (Clark 2022).

In light of this cultural shift, it is time for a thorough reconsideration of the “systems novel,” exploring how a new generation of writers from diverse cultural backgrounds have adopted, developed, or reimagined the conceptual concerns and formal techniques of the first-wave systems novelists such as William Gaddis, Thomas Pynchon, and Don DeLillo, or their successors, including David Foster Wallace, William T. Vollmann, and Richard Powers (LeClair 1996). How might we consider such works as Karen Tei Yamashita’s I Hotel (2010), Valeria Luiselli’s Lost Children Archive (2019), or Namwali Serpell’s The Old Drift (2019) as systems novels? In what ways do these and other authors force a reconsideration of the genre? What is the continued value of this means of classification?

The twenty-first century complicates the possibility of postulating a systems novel in the vein originally conceived by LeClair. At the same time, the rich diversity of writing to be considered opens new avenues for thinking about the form’s cultural and social resonances. In the wake of LeClair’s suggestion that systems texts potentially enable readers to reshape hegemonic systems of power in society, this special issue aims to feature a collection of scholarly articles that offer a multifaceted and intersectional perspective on the evolution of systems writing in the new millennium. It seeks contributions that consider the breadth of writing produced by authors representing marginalized communities as well as analyses rooted in a diversity of critical perspectives.

Potential topics for essays include, but are not limited to:
• Cognitive, bodily, and ethical perspectives in (relation to) systems novels;
• Considerations of race, gender, sexuality, disability, and other forms of identity as engaged by systems writing;
• The cultural and critical relevance of systems novels in the twenty-first century;
• Revisitation of critical concepts concerning systems novels;
• Systems novels, planetarity, and the Anthropocene;
• Relevant generic and theoretical approaches: encyclopedic, maximalist, mega-novel, and related forms.

Timeline:

February 28, 2026: submission of article proposals of max. 300 words and a short (150-word) biographical note to ali.dehdarirad@uniroma1.it

March 31, 2026: decision of acceptance or rejection of proposals

June 30, 2026: deadline for article submissions