John R.W. Speller. <i>Bourdieu and Literature</i>
10.13125/2039-6597/1250
John R.W. Speller’s study provides an excellent tool for testing Pierre Bourdieu’s thinking and its relevance to our current cultural context. Speller begins by recognising that «the literary and cultural fields have now entered a phase of ‘involution’ in the face of commercial and political pressures, bringing with them new forms of censorship and patronage» (15).
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2039-6597
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Guido Mattia Gallerani
Between
John R.W. Speller, <i>Bourdieu and Literature</i>
Text.Serial.Journal
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Between the Texts / Reviews: Eds. Giulio Iacoli and Marina Guglielmi
2014-05-30
2014-06-10
2014-05-27
2014-06-10
1
Guido Mattia Gallerani
2014/05/30
10.13125/2039-6597/1250
Università di Firenze
2039-6597
7
en
John R.W. Speller, <i>Bourdieu and Literature</i>
https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/between/article/download/1250/1019
4
                       John R.W. Speller

                  Bourdieu and Literature

           Cambridge, UK, Open Book, 2011, 203 pp.


     John R.W. Speller’s study provides an excellent tool for testing
Pierre Bourdieu’s thinking and its relevance to our current cultural
context. Speller begins by recognising that «the literary and cultural
fields have now entered a phase of ‘involution’ in the face of
commercial and political pressures, bringing with them new forms of
censorship and patronage» (15). If that sort of radical liberalism
invades society as well as culture and literature every day, the analysis
by Bourdieu, according to Speller, can still be relevant to
understanding how the global market unifies transnational cultural
productions. Indeed, Bourdieu may offer the possibility of studying
these productions despite their heterogeneity, as Speller confirms
towards the end of this volume: «against the idea that commercial
competition leads to a diversification of supply […] Bourdieu points to
the fact of increasing homogenisation of cultural products» (176).
     In order to successfully demonstrate Bourdieu’s complete
usefulness as a topical literate, Speller commences by synthesising
Bourdieu’s sociology of literature, paying particular heed to his main
concepts in comparison with other more “hegemonic” theories, such as
structuralist and Marxist interpretations. Thus, Speller must retrace the
theoretical unity of Bourdieu’s various concepts to demonstrate the
strength of Bourdieu’s explicatory system concerning Literature.
Consequently, Speller rightly endeavours to analyse the main notions
of Bourdieu’s sociology of literature in their interrelation,
acknowledging that «the three key concepts of capital, habitus and


Between, vol. IV, n. 7 (Maggio/ May 2014)
John R.W. Speller, Bourdieu and Literature (Guido Mattia Gallerani)



field […] only have their full explicative force in relation to each other»
(186).
      At the same time, the author manages to defend Bourdieu against
the charge of provincialism, an accusation made by those who
considered him an intellectual too involved in the French way of
thinking to aspire to a generalization of his theories and unable to
surpass the boundaries of the country in which his analysis was
applied and processed. By re-constructing Bourdieu as a
comprehensive thinker despite his diverse periods and nuances of
thought, Speller demonstrates that the fundamental concepts of
Bourdieu’s sociology can be applied at a global or even cross-national
level, specifically revealing that those concepts affect the circulation of
precise «relations of domination and subordination between different
literary traditions» (185). In particular, the notion of the “literary field”,
perhaps Bourdieu’s most important elaboration, is investigated from
different perspectives by Speller, who argues that this notion acts as a
mediator between socio-historical conditions and Literature. Speller
insists on the importance of the “literary field”, seeing as it avoids any
risk of social determinism on Literature, yet always permits «a
retranslation of the broader social struggle into the terms of the literary
debate» (68).
      In addition, Speller convincingly demonstrates how Bourdieu
relates literary works to social conditions by again utilizing the concept
of the literary field. This concept preserves for Literature a realistic
position within a historical context rather than presenting an
autonomist position on the order of L’art pour l’art: «works can then be
understood as the expression, translated or ‘mediated’ into a literary
form, of the author’s social position and history, and by implication as
an objectification of the social structure» (67). In search of an autonomy
of literary values, writers undoubtedly try to escape from the
hegemony of the market by their imaginative production. They could
invoke values alternative to those suggested by temporal powers, such
as authority or profit, and concurrently stress their distinction from the
owners of economic capital. In the third chapter, Speller points out the
basis of the “autonomy” conceived by Bourdieu within the literary


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                                           Between, vol. IV, n. 7 (Maggio/May 2014)



field, in other words the «writers’ ability to resist or ignore external
(especially religious, political, and commercial) demands» (48).
Conversely, Speller reminds us that the artists’ lack of economic capital
is compensated by earning another capital, the cultural one. This
alternative compensation, in turn, is built on «the respect given to the
literary vocation, the sacredness of literary texts and idols» (79).
      The midsection of Speller’s book is expressly dedicated to the
crossroads of Literature and Bourdieu’s sociology. On one hand,
Speller considers the sociology of literature as a scientific discipline.
Starting from the contribution of Lévi-Strauss (26), Speller states the
legitimateness of social sciences, a branch of study to which Bourdieu
also claims to belong. In particular, the sociogramme technique,
elaborated in Bourdieu’s Les Règles de l’art (1992), draws Speller’s
attention (53 ff.). According to the author, this work should not be
interpreted as a critical study, but rather represents Bourdieu’s
movement towards the scientific community. Indeed, the difference
between the literary field and experimental models is not to be found
in the scientific procedure, but in the agents of transformation. In fact,
Bourdieu takes into account social transformations over time,
proposing to study the role of writers and scientists within historical
struggles and conflicts.
      On the other hand, Speller studies how Literature inspires
Bourdieu’s sociological works. He reveals, for example, the role played
by Flaubert. In his first chapter, Speller focuses on Les Règles de l’art and
on the presence of Flaubert; the very prologue of Bourdieu’s book was
dedicated to the French writer. Some chapters later, Speller indicates
other works influenced by Flaubert, such as an article written by
Bourdieu and Boltanski that imitates Le Dictionnaire des idée recues and
aims to express the lexicon of the social dominant discourse (133). Also,
the key concept of the literary field seems to stem from Literature
(however, it is also derived from an epistemological basis, such as
Bachelard’s relational principles and Althusser’s ideological
apparatus). In particular, Speller connects Bourdieu’s elaboration with
the notion of the Republic of Letters and with some of Valéry’s claims
about cultural capital.


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John R.W. Speller, Bourdieu and Literature (Guido Mattia Gallerani)



     In chapter five, the study turns to the consideration of Literature
as cultural politics. Bourdieu’s undertaking in the political sphere
revolves around the promotion of sociologists to a central role in
government. According to Speller, «Bourdieu even hoped eventually to
see a role for the sociologist at the level of political decision-making, in
the way that economists are consulted currently» (139). Therefore,
Speller focuses on Bourdieu’s project for an International Parliament of
Writers, which, after a decade, failed in its purpose of creating a sort of
“collective intellectual” figure, who would have given origin, as a
collective grouping, to a new global symbolic capital (149).
     Symmetrically, cultural policies about Literature are at the heart
of chapter six. Here, Speller recovers the ideas of the School Reform
elaborated by Bourdieu in his didactic work. According to Bourdieu,
academies ratify social differences «behind apparently objective
categories based on merit» (155). Literature, however, always defends
the autonomy that the sociological methodology of Bourdieu bestows
upon it, that is to say its task of «instrument of mental emancipation»
(162). Consequently, literary education should assume an appropriate
role against the homogenization of the critical sensibility. In fact,
Speller delineates Bourdieu's involvement in a project outlined by the
Professors of the Collège de France in 1985 that had been assigned to
them by President of the Republic, François Mitterrand. Speller
analyses Bourdieu’s propositions of providing universal access to the
cultural production, in line with the belief that «unlike economic
poverty, cultural dispossession tends to exclude awareness of one’s
own state of deprivation» (172).
     In conclusion, according to Speller, Literature becomes a prism
that illuminates various aspects of Bourdieu’s vision. Speller’s study
demonstrates that Literature is not only a field for testing a sociological
methodology, but also a real social player, an active participant in
Bourdieu’s overall interpretation of human communities as both a
reflection of social transformations and a cultural vehicle of such
modifications.




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                            The author
Guido Mattia Gallerani

     PhD in Comparative Literature (University of Florence),
Teaching Assistant at the University of Bologna.

      Email: guidomattia.gallerani@unifi.it



                            The review
Data invio: 30/04/2014
Data accettazione: 15/05/2014
Data pubblicazione: 30/05/2014



                   How to quote this review
Gallerani, Guido Mattia, “John R.W. Speller. Bourdieu and Literature”,
Between, IV.7 (2014), http://www.between-journal.it/




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