The international circulation of ideas depends on a series of social factors and on the action of... more The international circulation of ideas depends on a series of social factors and on the action of intermediaries, as Bourdieu pointed out. The circulation of scholarly books in translation offers a relevant site of observation of intellectual exchanges across cultures. What academic books are translated and why? This paper proposes a general framework of factors determining the translation of scholarly books and of the circulation channels. Six sets of factors are analyzed: power relations between languages and cultures, symbolic capital and other properties of the author (gender, academic position, social capital), properties of the book (content, form, length, “packaging”), symbolic capital of the publisher(s), editorial and academic networks (social capital), private and public funding (economic capital). Some of them are specific to this category of books, others are characteristic of upmarket translations, others derive more generally from the power relations structuring the global book market. This framework is grounded in an empirical study of the cross-circulation of scholarly books between French and English in the era of globalization, mixing quantitative and qualitative methods. In this period, the United States became hegemonic in many domains, including the book market, a process which started in the 1970s, while the French hegemony declined, without however losing its symbolic capital in the area of the social sciences and humanities.
PERM UNIVERSITY HERALD. HISTORY / ВЕСТНИК ПЕРМСКОГО УНИВЕРСИТЕТА. ИСТОРИЯ, Nov 14, 2019
The debate on the responsibility of the writer was, in France as in the USA, an attack against li... more The debate on the responsibility of the writer was, in France as in the USA, an attack against literary and artistic modernism. From Charles Maurras to Irving Babbit, the reaction against modernism presented itself as a defense of Classicism and of tradition against Romanticism. Far from being politically neutral, this attack identified Romanticism with revolution and the destruction of the social order. The opposition between responsibility and freedom structured the debate from the end of the 19th century until World War II. The war entailed a loss of autonomy of the literary field which fostered, like during World War I, the imposition of national moralism. In both countries, a debate arose on the question of the responsibility of the writer, but it took a different form. Whereas the opposition between art for art’s sake and responsibility continued to structure it in the USA, the notion of responsibility was appropriated in France by the literary Resistance and redefined by Sartre at the Liberation doi 10.17072/2219-3111-2017-4-148-161
The meaning of a literary work is not independent from the conditions of its production and recep... more The meaning of a literary work is not independent from the conditions of its production and reception. Thus, while a work's meaning cannot be reduced to its appropriations, neither can the role of its receptions in its cultural and social signification be denied. Jauss’ concept of “horizon of expectations” to address this phenomenon is limited to analysis of the text itself, whereas a sociological perspective takes into account the mediations between the work and its audience. Drawing from Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of the literary field and from Raymond Williams' program for cultural studies, this chapter examines the reception process from a sociological perspective, based on empirical research done in sociology and literary history.
This chapter provides a new reading of field theory from a transnational perspective in light of ... more This chapter provides a new reading of field theory from a transnational perspective in light of the criticism taking issue with its alleged “methodological nationalism.” The field is an abstract concept that allows for the methodological autonomization of a space of activity defined in relational terms, provided that this autonomization is historically and sociologically grounded. As a result, fields are not necessarily limited to the perimeters of the nation-state. After reviewing the process of differentiation of fields and the phenomena of dependence and embeddedness, the chapter addresses the phenomena of nationalization and the role of the state in the formation of fields, then analyzes different modes and strategies of internationalization in relation to the structure of international power struggles, and to the tensions between state, market, and field borders. Finally, indicators of the emergence of transnational fields are proposed. In conclusion, the chapter comes back to the question of comparativism.
The international circulation of ideas depends on a series of social factors and on the action of... more The international circulation of ideas depends on a series of social factors and on the action of intermediaries, as Bourdieu pointed out. The circulation of scholarly books in translation offers a relevant site of observation of intellectual exchanges across cultures. What academic books are translated and why? This paper proposes a general framework of factors determining the translation of scholarly books and of the circulation channels. Six sets of factors are analyzed: power relations between languages and cultures, symbolic capital and other properties of the author (gender, academic position, social capital), properties of the book (content, form, length, “packaging”), symbolic capital of the publisher(s), editorial and academic networks (social capital), private and public funding (economic capital). Some of them are specific to this category of books, others are characteristic of upmarket translations, others derive more generally from the power relations structuring the global book market. This framework is grounded in an empirical study of the cross-circulation of scholarly books between French and English in the era of globalization, mixing quantitative and qualitative methods. In this period, the United States became hegemonic in many domains, including the book market, a process which started in the 1970s, while the French hegemony declined, without however losing its symbolic capital in the area of the social sciences and humanities.
PERM UNIVERSITY HERALD. HISTORY / ВЕСТНИК ПЕРМСКОГО УНИВЕРСИТЕТА. ИСТОРИЯ, Nov 14, 2019
The debate on the responsibility of the writer was, in France as in the USA, an attack against li... more The debate on the responsibility of the writer was, in France as in the USA, an attack against literary and artistic modernism. From Charles Maurras to Irving Babbit, the reaction against modernism presented itself as a defense of Classicism and of tradition against Romanticism. Far from being politically neutral, this attack identified Romanticism with revolution and the destruction of the social order. The opposition between responsibility and freedom structured the debate from the end of the 19th century until World War II. The war entailed a loss of autonomy of the literary field which fostered, like during World War I, the imposition of national moralism. In both countries, a debate arose on the question of the responsibility of the writer, but it took a different form. Whereas the opposition between art for art’s sake and responsibility continued to structure it in the USA, the notion of responsibility was appropriated in France by the literary Resistance and redefined by Sartre at the Liberation doi 10.17072/2219-3111-2017-4-148-161
The meaning of a literary work is not independent from the conditions of its production and recep... more The meaning of a literary work is not independent from the conditions of its production and reception. Thus, while a work's meaning cannot be reduced to its appropriations, neither can the role of its receptions in its cultural and social signification be denied. Jauss’ concept of “horizon of expectations” to address this phenomenon is limited to analysis of the text itself, whereas a sociological perspective takes into account the mediations between the work and its audience. Drawing from Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of the literary field and from Raymond Williams' program for cultural studies, this chapter examines the reception process from a sociological perspective, based on empirical research done in sociology and literary history.
This chapter provides a new reading of field theory from a transnational perspective in light of ... more This chapter provides a new reading of field theory from a transnational perspective in light of the criticism taking issue with its alleged “methodological nationalism.” The field is an abstract concept that allows for the methodological autonomization of a space of activity defined in relational terms, provided that this autonomization is historically and sociologically grounded. As a result, fields are not necessarily limited to the perimeters of the nation-state. After reviewing the process of differentiation of fields and the phenomena of dependence and embeddedness, the chapter addresses the phenomena of nationalization and the role of the state in the formation of fields, then analyzes different modes and strategies of internationalization in relation to the structure of international power struggles, and to the tensions between state, market, and field borders. Finally, indicators of the emergence of transnational fields are proposed. In conclusion, the chapter comes back to the question of comparativism.
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Papers by Gisèle Sapiro