Fiction as a “sociological thought experiment,” past and present

• In Event: 30259 - Public Sociology and Engaged Scholarship Part I

Abstract

From Martineau and Du Bois to Todd Gitlin and Ann Oakley, it may be surprising to learn that there is a long history of sociologists who have written fiction to tell sociological stories. The purpose of this paper is to first, trace the thread of fiction in sociological writing, second, to offer a first-person window into the instincts for putting together a sociological novel, and third, to propose a set of key facets of fiction writing that could be identified as sociological, whether the author is a working sociologist or not. In so doing, the paper frames fiction writing as a “thought experiment” that can be used as a form of public sociology or as an entrée into sociological thinking for pedagogical purposes.

Author

• Jonathan R. Wynn, University of Massachusetts-Amherst