Englisches Seminar, room 11
“In the coming months, the fact that a book is ‘Non-Woke’ will be a feature. And people, many people, will pay $$$ for it”: Far-Right Authors and the U.S. Literary Field
This talk examines the relationship between literary authors belonging to the far-right political spectrum and the U.S. book business. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s literary sociological theory of the literary field – a space that takes a dominated position in the general power structures that underly society, but which has developed some kind of autonomy from dominant forms of capital – the talk analyzes how the contemporary book market and the notion of consecration hinders and enables the dissemination of far-right literature. These writers are put in a difficult position concerning publishing, which simultaneously allows them to capitalize on their supposed political repression. It will also consider how the founding of far-right publishing houses has affected the field, and what position they occupy in it, to conclude that despite their best efforts, far-right literature remains marginal to this day, both concerning the literary field and far-right politics. The talk ends with a short overview of what position ultranationalist and neo-imperialist literature and their authors have in the Russian context, which, interestingly, proves to be almost the opposite of their U.S. American counterparts.
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