Thank you for such kindness about the work. In fact my PhD is not in Economics. It was in International Relations (same as my Masters), and the subject matter was the philosophy of International Law, so in fact most of my publications and conferences I go to and so on are legally focused, and many of the people I work closest with (academically) are at law schools. I think the confusion arises because I was at the London School of Economics, but that’s an institution that covers a variety of social and political disciplines, not just economics.
As to how the two things interacted. I think that at the level of thematic concern, both my fiction and my nonfiction are drawing from and mediating – in very different ways – a shared reservoir of concerns and interests. So there’s inevitable overlap, but it’s not (at least consciously) so much one influencing another as both coming from a shared place. Sometimes that will break out into more overt riffing, occasional moments where the line linking the two is more direct – a reference to maritime law in The Scar, a thinly veiled piss-take of a theory of legal ‘exceptionality’ in The City & the City, and so on.
As to your point about discipline, I don’t know that I have any insight other than the fairly obvious one which is that to survive, let alone thrive, while doing a PhD you do need to be fairly self-disciplined, and/or driven, and that is also a trait (though it manifests differently) that is helpful, or even indispensable, when you are writing fiction. So if you’re the kind of person who can lock yourself away for hours at a time, not talk to anyone, and stare at a computer, then you’re at an advantage.
As to how the two things interacted. I think that at the level of thematic concern, both my fiction and my nonfiction are drawing from and mediating – in very different ways – a shared reservoir of concerns and interests. So there’s inevitable overlap, but it’s not (at least consciously) so much one influencing another as both coming from a shared place. Sometimes that will break out into more overt riffing, occasional moments where the line linking the two is more direct – a reference to maritime law in The Scar, a thinly veiled piss-take of a theory of legal ‘exceptionality’ in The City & the City, and so on.
As to your point about discipline, I don’t know that I have any insight other than the fairly obvious one which is that to survive, let alone thrive, while doing a PhD you do need to be fairly self-disciplined, and/or driven, and that is also a trait (though it manifests differently) that is helpful, or even indispensable, when you are writing fiction. So if you’re the kind of person who can lock yourself away for hours at a time, not talk to anyone, and stare at a computer, then you’re at an advantage.