Neoliberalism and the method of "double historicization" in Rules of Art by Pierre Bourdieu
Abstract
In this paper, our aim is to show that there is an essential connection between Rules of Art, Pierre Bourdieu’s main work on literature, and his critique of neoliberalism present in his later works. Namely, starting from the Postscript at the end of Rules of Art, we will show that the autonomy of the literary field obtained in the XIX century (with all its implications: the charismatic “celebration” of the author, the fetishization of literary works, the establishment of the anti-economic logic of literature and symbolic capital, the establishment of an “aesthetic gaze”, etc.) does not guarantee that the field will remain forever autonomous. In the first part, we will present and analyze the critique of the politics and economy of neoliberalism in the works of Pierre Bourdieu, with a particular emphasis on its consequences on the autonomy of literature and the other cultural fields. We will argue (following Bourdieu) that the only way to understand the autonomy of the literary field and the autonomy of literature in general today, is to place them in this context of neoliberal politics and economics. In the second and main part, we will present Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of “double historicization”, as a method through which he tries to respond to the challenges that neoliberalism poses to culture and literature. We will analyze this concept in detail, which Bourdieu sets up as an alternative to both “internal” and “external readings”. In both cases – both in the first and in the second part – we will emphasize his theoretical similarities with certain currents of Anglo-American Marxism (Raymond Williams, Terry Eagleton, Frederic Jamieson) and some other theorists, such as Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin and Jacques Rancière. Finally, we will try to summarize the objectives of Rules of Art through three points in this wider context.
Downloads
References
Adorno, W. T., Bernstein, J.M. (ed.). (1991). The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture. London and New York: Routledge.
Barthes. R. (1970). Writing Degree Zero. London: Jonathan Cape.
Bourdie, P., Johnson. R. (ed.). (1993). The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature. New York: Columbia University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1993). Sociology in Question. London: Saga Publications, 1993.
Bourdieu, P., Haacke, H. (1995). Free Exchange. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1995). The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (2005). The Social Structures of the Economy. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bourdieu, P. (2008). A Conservative Revolution in Publishing. Translation Studies, 1 (2): 123-151. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14781700802113465
Bourdieu, P. (2009). Political Interventions: Social Science and Political Action. London and New York: Verso.
Bourdieu, P. (2014). On the State ‒ Lectures at the College de France (1989-1992). Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bourdieu, P. (2020). Habitus and Field: General Sociology, Volume 2 ‒ Lectures at the College de France (1982-1983). Cambridge: Polity Press, 2020.
Bourdieu. P. (2004). Science of Science and Reflexivity. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Bourdieu, P., Chartier, R. (2015). The Sociologist and the Historian. Cambridge and Malden: Polity Press.
Bourdieu, P., Wacquant, L.J.D. (1992). An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Brooks, C. (1960). The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry. London: Dennis Dobson Ltd.
Casanova, P. (2006). Samuel Beckett: Anatomy of a Literary Revolution. London and New York: Verso.
Casanova, P. (2015). Kafka, Angry Poet. London, New York, Calcutta: Seagull Books.
Casanova, P. (2004). The World Republic of Letters. Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England: Harvard University Press.
Cassirer, E. (1953). Substance and Function / Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Chicago: Dover Publications Inc.
Eagleton, T. (2008). Literary Theory: An Introduction. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press. Eagleton, T. (2012). The Event of Literature. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Eeagleton, T. (1990). The Ideology of the Aesthetic. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. Goldman, L. (1975). Towards a Sociology of the Novel. London: Tavistock Publications.
Goldman, L. (2013). The Hidden God: A Study of Tragic Vision in the Pensées of Pascal and the Tragedies of Racine. London and New York: Routledge.
Greenfell, M. (2004). Pierre Bourdieu: Agent Provocateur. London and New York: Continuum.
Habermas, J. (1991). The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
Horkheimer, M., Adorno, T. (2002). Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Jameson, F. (1991). Postmodernism or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke University Press.
Jameson, F. (2002). The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. London: Routledge.
Lane, F. J. (2006). Bourdieus’s Politics: Problems and possibilities. London and New York: Routledge.
Lukač, G. (1956). Gete i njegovo doba. Izdavačko preduzeće „Veselin Masleša“: Sarajevo.
Lukacs, G. (1964). Realism in Our Time: Literature and the Class Struggle. New York: Harper Torchbooks.
Lukacs, G. (1964). Studies in European Realism. New York: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers.
Marks, K. (1976). Prilog kritici političke ekonomije. Beograd: BIGZ.
Rancière, J. (2011). Mute Speech: Literature, Critical Theory, and Politics. New York: Columbia University Press.
Sartre, J.P. (1988). “What is Literature” and Other Essays. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Speller, J.R.W. (2011). Bourdieu and Literature. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers. Thompson, P. (2008). Field. In Grenfell, M. (ed.). Pierre Bourdieu: Key Concepts, 199-212. Durham: Acumen Publishing Limited.
Williams, R. (1960). Culture and Society: 1780-1950. New York: Anchor Books.
Williams, R. (1961). The Long Revolution. London: Penguin Books.
Williams, R. (1977). Marxism and Literature. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.
Bourdieu, P., Grass, G. (2002). The ‘Progressive’ Restoration. New Left Review, Mar/Apr 14th. [Online]. Available from: https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii14/articles/pierre-bourdieu- gunter-grass-the-progressive-restoration [Accessed: December 19th, 2022]
Bourdieu, P., Morrison, T. (1998) «Voir comme on ne voit jamais». VACARME 06, Janyary 2nd. [Online]. Available from: https://vacarme.org/article807.html [Accessed: December 19th, 2022]
Bourdieu, P. (1998). L’essence du néolibéralisme. Le Monde diplomatique. Mars. [Online]. Available from: https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/1998/03/BOURDIEU/3609 [Accessed: January 6th, 2023]
