Output details

Exodus

Exodus is set in the aftermath of the financial crash of 2008, and follows two academics on a lecture tour, during which they witness the ravages of late-capitalism at first hand. Exodus, in contrast to Spurious and Dogma, is directly concerned with politics, and sees my characters attempt to diagnose and address the havoc wreaked by neoliberal capitalism on Western intellectual life, with special reference to the university. Its characters speak to their audiences of the new historical phase that they argue contemporary society has entered, in which capitalism operates directly on inner life – directly on the ‘soul’. Disgusted by the growing inequality of their country, by the privatisation and commercialisation of public space which they encounter in their travels, as well as by the regeneration schemes that have homogenised British city centres, the characters make an abortive foray into the Occupation movement.

My research for the novel Exodus led me to Marx in particular, and to the Marxist tradition more generally, and I made substantial use of Paulo Virno’s concepts of opportunism and cynicism. I also drew on the work of Kierkegaard in some depth, responding to Mario Tronti’s suggestion that it is in the work of this Danish thinker that one can find an accurate phenomenology of despair under capitalism. By reference to Kierkegaard, I was able to show how my characters politicise their despair, understanding it as the result of broader societal and cultural forces, and acting on the basis of what it discloses.