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"The Sociology of Literature is a pithy primer to the history, affordances, and potential futures of this growing field of study, which finds its origins in the French Enlightenment, and its most salient expression as a sociological pursuit in the work of Pierre Bourdieu. Addressing the epistemological premises of the field at present, the book also refutes the common criticism that the sociology of literature does not take the text to be the central object of study. From this rebuttal, Gisèle Sapiro, the field's leading theorist, is able to demonstrate convincingly one of the greatest affordances of the discipline: its in-built methods for accounting for the roles and behaviors of agents and institutions (publishing houses, prize committees, etc.) in the circulation and reception of texts. While Sapiro emphasizes the rich interdisciplinary nature of the approach on display, articulating the way in which it draws on literary history, sociology, postcolonial studies, book history, gender studies, and media studies, among others, the book also stands as a defense of the sociology of literature as a discipline in its own right"--

Building on earlier work in the production of culture, reception aesthetics, and cultural capital, sociology of literature research during the past few years has concentrated on readers' construction of meaning and on networks within literary systems. New directions include studying the relationship between literature and group identities; connecting institutional and reader-response analyses; reintroducing the role of authorial intentionality; and developing a clearer understanding of how literature is and is not like other media.

The approaches to the sociology of literature of Lucien Goldmann & Leo Lowenthal are compared. They contrast in that Lowenthal rejected as inappropriate Goldmann's fundamental concern with method & theory, preferring that method be implicit in concrete analysis. Goldmann considered Lowenthal to be primarily concerned with society rather than with literature, a statement with which Lowenthal agreed. Lowenthal concerned himself with the social effects of literature, while Goldmann did not. Thus, while Goldmann's theoretical contribution has been greater, Lowenthal's breadth & flexibility have allowed him to deal with important questions that Goldmann has ignored. W. H. Stoddard.

Russian formalism has been of interest in the west for at least three decades since the publication of Victor Erlich's authoritative study of the school in 1954. Almost every year significant new contributions are made to the analysis of the formalists' scholarship; their multiplex theory, with all of its different, and at times seemingly contradictory, aspects, is elucidated, and many of these aspects are successfully incorporated in modern criticism and literary theory in the west. I will not dwell upon the better known "internalist" aspects of the formalists' work, nor will I try to summarize their theory. Several leading members of the school systematically attempted to create a coherent theoretical framework for thesociologyof literature. In this article I will look at the sociology of the Russian formalists from the point of view of a sociologist, analyze it, and suggest that the formalist sociology of literature makes a valuable contribution not only to our understanding of literature, but also to the understanding of social reality and to the discipline of sociology.

An historical definition of the sociol of literature is presented. The situation & development of this field are examined mainly in the US, France, & the Federal Republic of Germany. In the US it is held that sociol'al literary criticism has evolved, perhaps more than anywhere else, in accordance with the soc situation. The approaches of the following critics are noted: V. F. Calverton, R. H. Pearce, L. Lowenthal, I. Watt, K. Burke, & R. Wellek & A. Warren. It is stated that the enormous Amer production of sociol'al works obviously comprises numerous notes on literature, but these notes do not at all compensate for the general dearth which is so obvious in this field. In Germany, there is felt to be a philosophical & sociol'al tradition which is directed to a much greater extent towards the sociol of literature. Certain Marxian writers, such as F. Mehring, are mentioned in this connection. Another approach is the use of the concept of form as applied to society & its cultural productions. G. Lukacs adopts an intermediate approach: his work, Kantian at the start, then Hegelian & Marxian, represents the corpus of the most complete sociol of literature yet produced by a single author. Cited are THE SOUL AND FORMS (Berlin, 1911) & THEORY OF THE NOVEL (Paris, 1963). After WWII it is mainly around the Frankfurt Sch that the sociol of literature developed. Mentioned are T. W. Adorno, W. Benjamin, L. Schuking, E. Auerbach & E. Kohler. In France, a little-known precursor of the French sociol'al tradition is J. M. Guyau, who in 1889 affirmed the structuralist nature of criticism. Other forerunners are J. Bedier, G. Lanson & L. Febvre. It is felt that the sociol of literature has found its most coherent expression in L. Goldmann, who holds that the sociol of literature has in view the understanding of the meaning of a work. This means clarifying the total network of meanings which internal analysis of a work reveals by an explanation & inserting this network in a whole of wider signif: the soc group. In conclusion, the works cited seem to indicate 2 directions for res: (a) a microsociol'al study of groups which comprise a world vision, whose aim must be the study of the actual conditions operating between creative groups & individuals, & (2) a more scrupulous reading of texts which would include the symptomatological structures. E. Weiman.

Call for Applications of the Institute of Czech Literature in Prague. Deadline: February 29, 2024