Una finzione empirica. Epistemologia del lavoro intellettuale tra sociologia e letteratura

This essay provides a theoretical and epistemological thought on the relationship between Sociology and Literature. Starting from a critical review of sociological and narrative studies, the paper analyzes the transformations of academic labor. The first part explores some epistemological approaches useful to assume fiction as an integral part of social phenomena, avoiding any attempt to use fiction as an object of inquiry, separated from researchers. Novel is not only a source of sociological data but also a specific form of expression of social reality. In the second part of the essay, this approach is used to analyze some specific insights of academic labor by using novels whose main characters are researchers and academic scholars (White Noise by DeLillo; Stoner by Williams; The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown).