Experimental Literature at the Intersection of Philosophy and Form
Near Zero Blog explores the territories where philosophy meets experimental literature, where ideas become generative constraints for new forms of writing, and where diverse philosophical traditions offer tools for expanding literary possibilities.
What You’ll Find Here
This is a space for experimental poetry, philosophical fiction, serial novels, and critical essays that use philosophy not as subject matter but as method—ways of seeing and writing that open new creative territories. The work here draws from multiple philosophical traditions to create literature that thinks alongside ideas rather than simply about them.
Experimental Poetry: Verses that emerge from philosophical constraints and investigations, exploring everything from object withdrawal to existential anxiety to phenomenological attention.
Philosophical Fiction: Stories where philosophical concepts become narrative engines, creating new possibilities for character, plot, and meaning-making.
Serial Novels: Ongoing fictional works that develop sustained philosophical investigations through narrative form, exploring themes from posthuman entanglements to existential authenticity.
Critical Essays: Explorations of how philosophical ideas can generate new literary methods and forms, bridging theory and creative practice.
Hybrid Forms: Prose poems, essay-fictions, and other experimental forms that blur boundaries between philosophy and literature.
The Near Zero Approach
“Near zero” suggests the liminal space where certainty dissolves and new possibilities emerge—the productive uncertainty where philosophy and literature meet. This blog operates in that territory where established forms begin to break down and experimental methods become necessary.
The writing here treats philosophy as a creative toolkit rather than a doctrine. Whether drawing from Object-Oriented Ontology’s attention to non-human agency, existentialism’s focus on radical freedom and authenticity, phenomenology’s investigation of experience, or other traditions, the goal is always literary: how can philosophical thinking expand what writing can do?
Philosophical Territories
Current explorations include:
Object-Oriented Ontology: How do we write literature that takes seriously the reality and agency of non-human entities? What forms are adequate to withdrawn objects and hyperobjects?
Existentialism: How do we create fiction that genuinely explores radical freedom, bad faith, authenticity, and the weight of existence? What does existential anxiety look like in contemporary literary forms?
Phenomenology: How can literature attend to the structures of experience itself? What writing methods can capture the lived texture of consciousness and embodiment?
New Materialism: How do we develop forms that recognize material agency and the entanglement of meaning and matter?
Temporal Philosophy: How do multiple temporalities—personal, historical, geological, cosmic—operate simultaneously in literary works?
On Method
These pieces emerge from philosophical constraint as creative method. Rather than writing about philosophical ideas, the work here asks: what happens when philosophical insights become formal constraints? When existential concepts generate narrative structures? When phenomenological attention shapes poetic rhythms?
The experimental forms reflect this methodological commitment. If philosophy reveals new aspects of reality, then literature needs new forms adequate to those revelations. Sometimes this means poems that operate on multiple temporal scales. Sometimes it means fiction where abstract concepts become characters. Always it means taking both philosophy and literature seriously as modes of investigation.
Diverse Traditions, Experimental Unity
While the blog draws from diverse philosophical traditions—some focused on human experience, others on posthuman realities—the unifying thread is experimental commitment: the willingness to let philosophical thinking reshape literary practice.
An existentialist story about bad faith and a posthuman poem about object withdrawal might seem to inhabit different worlds, but both emerge from the same methodological question: how can philosophical attention generate new literary possibilities?
For Readers
If you’re drawn to literature that thinks seriously about philosophical questions, fiction that experiments with form as well as content, or poetry that uses conceptual constraints to discover new territories, you’ve found a home here.
The writing assumes no specialized philosophical background but takes ideas seriously. Whether you’re encountering these philosophical traditions for the first time or you’re already thinking with them, these pieces aim to create genuine literary encounters with conceptual possibilities.
Serial Works & Ongoing Investigations
Near Zero Blog features ongoing serial novels that develop sustained philosophical investigations through narrative form. These longer works allow for deep exploration of how philosophical concepts can generate and sustain fictional worlds over time.
Current and upcoming serials explore diverse philosophical territories while maintaining commitment to experimental literary form. Each serial operates as both entertainment and investigation, using narrative duration to explore ideas that require sustained attention.
A Note on Form
Many pieces here blur traditional boundaries—poem-essays, philosophical fictions, serial novels that operate as extended thought experiments. This reflects a commitment to letting philosophical content determine literary form rather than forcing investigations into predetermined genres.
The goal is not to create “philosophical literature” as a special category, but to discover what literature becomes when it takes philosophical thinking seriously as creative method.
Contact & Connection
This blog is part of an ongoing investigation into what experimental literature might discover when it treats diverse philosophical traditions as creative tools rather than subjects of study.
The work here is offered in the spirit of genuine literary experimentation—the excitement of discovering what becomes possible when philosophical attention meets commitment to form.
Whether you’re drawn to existential fiction that explores radical freedom, posthuman poetry that decenters human experience, phenomenological prose that attends to consciousness, or other philosophical-literary territories, these explorations invite you into the productive uncertainty where new forms emerge.
Near Zero Blog is written by R. Jay Hoffman, exploring experimental literature at the intersection of diverse philosophical traditions and innovative literary forms.
