What is the EU Novel? Arche-Teleology, Queer Temporality, and the Contested Domain of Europe in Robert Menasse's Die Hauptstadt and Angela Dimitrakaki's Aeroplast

Abstract

Through a 'contrapuntal' analysis of two recent political novels—Robert Menasse's Die Hauptstadt (first published in German in 2017) and Angela Dimitrakaki's Aeroplast (first published in Greek in 2015)—the article analyses the ways in which the European Union is narrated in contemporary European fiction. The article emphasizes the different aesthetic strategies and political valences of the two texts in their representation, negotiation, and poietic constitution of Europe as an imaginary institution and precarious domain of political praxis. It also considers the uneven power dynamics between different European literatures in their dissemination of competing visions of the European Union.