The Field of Cultural Production

by Pierre Bourdieu, Randal Johnson (Editor)

Overview

Elaborates a theory of the cultural field which situates artistic works within the social conditions of their production, circulation, and consumption.

-Brings together Bourdieu's most important writings on art, literature, and aesthetics. Bourdieu's analysis of the economy of symbolic capital and of cultural power relations will undoubtedly become classic formulations. -Lisa Jardine

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231082860
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	04/22/1993
Series:	European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	332
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Pierre Bourdieu is professor of Sociology at the College de France. His numerous other works include Homo Academicus and Language and Symbolic Power.

Table of Contents

Lonely Woman The Oracle Foxfire The Suspended Bridge Strange Bonds Selected Bibliography

What People are Saying About This

Lisa Jardine

As we have come to expect from him, Pierre Bourdieu's lucid analysis of the field of cultural production once again provides us with key terms for udnerstanding the issues at the forefront of current critical debate. His accounts of the economy of symbolic capital and of cultural power relations will undoubtedly become classic formulations, shaping future work on the sociology of culture.

— Lisa Jardine, University of London

Editorial Reviews

It is a coherent, stimulating and indispensable set of essays gathered in one book that affirm Bourdieu's place as the most interesting of sociologists of culture to think with.

Sociology - Kieran Flanagan

The Field of Cultural Production is a book about this kind of struggle as it takes place among the creators, distributors, and critics of cultural products, and it attempts to explain why this specialized conflict should be regarded as of primary importance in determinig the character of our cultural life. In another sense, the book is part of Bourdieu's continuing brief for his own conception of an intellectual mission, and it attempts to avoid the errors he perceives in elitism and populism by yoking their disparate valences to the tense balance of what he calls a "reflexive sociology."

Sean McCannn Quarterly

Bourdieu’s most significant work on cultural production

Media, Culture, and Society - David Hesmondhalgh

The Field of Cultural Production is fashioned as both an introduction to Bourdieu's sociology and as a survey of his major essays on art and literature.

Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism - Tom Huhn

What distinguishes this book is that its author so convincingly, so thoroughly and so successfully transcends the dual- isms which attend the clumsy formulation of art and society and which lead expla- nation to the unhappy choices of textual- ism or contextualism. Bourdieu shows how misleading is the preposition 'and' in 'art and society'.

British Journal of Sociology - Gordon Fyfe

The Field of Cultural Production is a book about this kind of struggle as it takes place among the creators, distributors, and critics of cultural products, and it attempts to explain why this specialized conflict should be regarded as of primary importance in determinig the character of our cultural life. In another sense, the book is part of Bourdieu's continuing brief for his own conception of an intellectual mission, and it attempts to avoid the errors he perceives in elitism and populism by yoking their disparate valences to the tense balance of what he calls a "reflexive sociology."

American Quarterly - Sean McCann

Brings together Bourdieu's most important writings on art, literature, and aesthetics. Bourdieu's analysis of the economy of symbolic capital and of cultural power relations will undoubtedly become classic formulations.

Lisa Jardine

Since the early 1970s, French sociologist Bourdieu has become a major theoretical voice in the critical study of cultural practices. This volume brings together Bourdieu's major essays on art, literature, and culture, published between 1968 and 1987. It includes articles appearing in English for the first time, others previously published in book and journals but not always readily accessible, and a series of three lectures presented as the Christian Gauss Seminars in Criticism at Princeton U. in 1986, here published for the first time in any language. Edited with an introduction by Randal Johnson. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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