The Political Life of the Novel

Literatures of Annihilation, Exile, and Resistance

Available on-demand

Join novelists Isabella Hammad, Brandon Hobson, and Amir Ahmadi Arian for an ontological inquiry into the aesthetics of resistance. Amidst the ongoing Nakba and systemic dispossessions, this dialogue interrogates the novel as a technology of resistance, transforming state violence into a grammar of human sovereignty and asserting historical truth against annihilation.

This event is sponsored by Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, Creative Writing Program, Department of English, Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, The Graduate School, Department of American Studies, Institute for Social Concerns, Teaching Beyond the Classroom Grants, The Brookline Booksmith Transnational Literature Series and the Franco Family Institute for Liberal Arts and the Public Good/Henkels Grant.

Literatures of Annihilation, Exile, and Resistance is a research collective, conversation series, and digital archive dedicated to contemporary literature shaped by exile, transnational migration, and human rights violations. The series brings Southwest and Southeast Asian and North African writers and artists into sustained dialogue with American writers and scholars to imagine new modes of literary production across borders and cultivate intersectional solidarities. The series was developed as a global public humanities project in partnership with institutes and initiatives both within and beyond the University of Notre Dame, and was founded by author and Dorothy G. Griffin College Professor of English at Notre Dame, Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi in 2020.

For more information visit the event website.

The Sojourner Truth Commons recently served as the site for a rigorous intellectual convening within the “Literatures of Annihilation, Exile, and Resistance” series. Founded by Professor Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi, this initiative provides a critical sanctuary for exploring the intersection of aesthetic innovation and systemic dispossession. The discussion centered on the novel not merely as a mirror to reality, but as a sophisticated technology capable of navigating the “illusory realism” of the state. In the wake of ongoing global catastrophes, the panel examined how the literary form provides a mechanism for ontological security and social justice, mobilizing counter-histories that refuse the flattening effects of imperial narratives.

2.1 Narrating the Inexpressible

The dialogue interrogated how the novelist constructs a “grammar of experiences so abhorrent they exist beyond the limits of speech.” For Amir Ahmadi Arian, this involves capturing the “time warp” of Evin Prison in Then the Fish Swallowed Him, where the protagonist’s psyche is distorted by state brutality. Isabella Hammad’s Enter Ghost utilizes the metatheatrical structure of a West Bank production of Hamlet to navigate the haunting silences of the Palestinian experience. Brandon Hobson’s The Removed employs a polyphonic, fractured narrative to bridge the trauma of modern police violence with the historical removal of the Cherokee people. By eschewing “facile closure,” these authors use the novel’s formal complexity—whether through theatricality or nonlinear time—to challenge the state’s attempt to simplify and silence contested histories.

Transition: Yet, this narrative grammar is not merely an abstract linguistic exercise; it serves as the essential scaffolding for the lived, physical reality of the characters, whose very bodies become the final site of contestation.

2.2 The Body as the Final Battleground

A recurring motif within the works is the vulnerability of the “naked body” under the predatory gaze of the state. Amir Ahmadi Arian provided a harrowing analysis of the carceral “cleaning” in Evin Prison—a process of stripping and violation designed to “clear the space” around the individual. This intrusive act serves as a symbolic “planting of a chip” under the skin, signaling the state’s intent to occupy the dissident’s most private physical realm. Isabella Hammad contrasted this state intrusion with the “assertion of sovereignty” found in the hunger strike. In this context, the body is reclaimed as territory where the prisoner exercises the only remaining control: the choice of what enters and exits the self. In these narratives, the skin is not just a boundary but a battleground for autonomy against a state that seeks total occupation of the subject.

Transition: While the state attempts to colonize the physical body through carceral violence, it simultaneously constructs digital and environmental architectures designed to render the private mind transparent.

2.3 Technology, Surveillance, and the Unmediated Space

The panelists offered a devastating critique of modern technology as a tool for the “financialization of data” and state surveillance. Arian recounted the psychological violation of being presented with printed transcripts of his private Gmail correspondence during an interrogation, shattering the illusion of digital privacy. This invasive reality is mirrored in the novels: Hobson’s “video game hologram” in the “darkening lands” depicts the individual as a hunted digital object, while Hammad describes a “surveillance drone” perspective that views human struggle from a detached, predatory height. In opposition to this digital panopticon, the authors championed the “anti-tech” nature of live theater and the act of reading. These are described as “completely unmediated” and “live” environments that foster a physical presence and a contract of silence, preserving the human element in an era of total tracking.

Recap Conclusion

The convening concluded with a reflection on the novel as a “second life,” a concept borrowed from Mahmud Darwish. By embracing what Arundhati Roy calls “freedom with responsibility,” these writers ensure that literature remains a generative haunting. The novel serves as a vital counter-history, proving that even in the wake of annihilation, the private space of the mind remains a territory the state cannot fully conquer.

Question 1: How does the etymology of “Genocide” and “Vandalism” inform our understanding of cultural destruction? The discussion invoked the scholarly legacy of Raphael Lemkin, the legal mind who formulated the term “genocide” from the Greek Ginos (race/tribe) and Latin Kiling. Referencing the insights of genocide scholar Ernesto Vera, the panel noted that while the UN convention focuses on physical destruction, Lemkin’s original sociological framework included “Barbarity”—the premeditated destruction of collectivities—and “Vandalism.” The latter refers to the systematic destruction of art and cultural heritage. This distinction is crucial; state violence aims to erase the “unique genius” of a people revealed through their science and literature, making the destruction of the novel an act of ontological erasure.

Question 2: What is the significance of “Mental Cartography” as a survival mechanism in solitary confinement? Amir Ahmadi Arian introduced “mental cartography” as a technique used by his protagonist, Yunis, to resist the “emptying” of the subjecthood in prison. As a former bus driver, Yunis is a “cartographer of sorts,” having spent his life traversing the geography of Tehran. In the sensory deprivation of a cell, he survives by mentally retracing his old bus routes, counting his steps and visualizing every window and street corner. This act of mapping space within the mind prevents the state from achieving its goal of total disorientation, using professional memory to reclaim a sense of place.

Question 3: Why is the novel considered a “private space” in an era of total digital surveillance? Isabella Hammad argued that the novel provides a rare sanctuary of privacy in a world where every digital interaction is recorded and financialized. Unlike a screen, which is an interface for state and corporate intrusion, the “contract of silence” between an author and a reader creates an unmediated psychological space. This privacy is essential for maintaining independence from a “militarized” technological infrastructure that trains populations to move all social and intellectual life onto trackable, remote platforms.

Question 4: How do “Spirit Ancestors” and nonlinear time facilitate the processing of historical trauma? Brandon Hobson explained that his character Chala—a spirit ancestor—functions as a vehicle for a “fractured narrative” that mirrors the persistence of trauma. Chala exists outside of Western linear time, described through poetic imagery as “watching from underwater” or “rising up like mist.” This nonlinear perspective allows the novel to address the “Trail of Tears” (the removal) not as a historical artifact, but as a living presence. By weaving oral history into the present, the novel achieves a “reunification” of the family and their ancestors, asserting resilience across generations.

Question 5: How should we distinguish between the “Silence of the State” and the “Silence of the Poet”? The panel contrasted the state’s weaponization of silence—used to obfuscate history and disappear dissidents—with the “willful resistance” of literary silence. Amir Ahmadi Arian noted that in carceral settings, silence is a “survival strategy” where one is trained never to say a word more than necessary. Conversely, referencing Mahmud Darwish’s statement, “I am writing my silence,” the authors suggested that the poet uses silence to protect the complexity of experience. While the state enforces silence to erase, the writer employs it to shield the private mind and resist the “fasile closure” demanded by political rhetoric.

“The purpose of the solitary confinement actually is not to leave you alone; it is to kind of clear the space around you… so that the state can take over all of that space, occupy that whole space.” — Amir Ahmadi Arian
“It becomes this kind of assertion of sovereignty to have control over the body in that way… because it’s the only thing you can control, what enters and what exits.” — Isabella Hammad
“An elder had once taught me not to be afraid of death because there is no death; there is only a change of worlds.” — Brandon Hobson (quoting a Cherokee elder)
“The very form of the novel gives a writer the freedom to be as complicated as she wants… a novel is freedom with responsibility.” — Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi (quoting Arundhati Roy)
“I had an odd thought… that anyway everything had been decided in advance. We were only acting parts that had been given to us and now some inexorable Machinery was being set in motion.” — Isabella Hammad (reading from her novel, Enter Ghost)