Original scientific paper
Financial Algorithms in Post-2008 Literature: Kim Stanley Robinson and Hari Kunzru
Brian Willems
; The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Split
Abstract
One reason no alternative is seen to capitalism is because of financial algorithms. They are ubiquitous, created in the past, and have a performative effect on the future, meaning that traders make the market conform to the model (Donald MacKenzie, Elena Esposito). However, some fictional algorithms appearing in literature after the 2007–2008 financial crisis reconfigure these characteristics into strategies for change. Rather than being determined by past states or indices, the algorithms found in novels by Kim Stanley Robinson and Hari Kunzru are based on extreme volatility. Because these algorithms are founded on a fluid past, they can create a fluid future, providing alternatives to the pervasiveness of what Mark Fisher develops as capitalist realism. One way they do this is by engaging with the list as a way to mirror life rather than narrative.
Keywords
financial algorithm; Kim Stanley Robinson; Hari Kunzru; capitalist realism; lists
Hrčak ID:
212193
URI
Publication date:
11.12.2018.
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