Making World Literature
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€91.99
A01=Anna Muenchrath
agency in publishing
Amazon
Anthologies
archival research in literature
Author_Anna Muenchrath
Authors
authorship and agency
book industry power relations
book market economics
book market structures
Books
Bookstores
canon formation in literature
Category=DS
Category=JBCC1
Category=JBCT
Category=JBSL1
circulation of texts
commercial publishing strategies
cross-cultural publishing
cultural authority in literature
cultural capital in literature
cultural politics of literature
economic forces in publishing
editorial decision-making
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Global
global book circulation
global literary exchange
global literary networks
global reading communities
Harlem Renaissance
historical publishing networks
institutional gatekeepers
institutional influence on literature
Literary Agents
literary field dynamics
literary futures
literary gatekeeping
literary globalization
literary marketplace dynamics
literary network theory
literary production studies
literary selection processes
literary value systems
literature and global capitalism
literature and ideology
literature distribution channels
literature in capitalist systems
Nation
National culture
nonprofit publishing models
Oprah's Book Club
paratextual analysis
pedagogy and literature
politics of book translation
Publishing
publishing industry analysis
publishing institutions analysis
publishing power structures
reader influence on literature
Translation
translation and cultural
translation as cultural exchange
translation economics
translation networks
transnational literary flows
world canon debates
world literature pedagogy
Product details
- ISBN 9781625348418
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 27 Dec 2024
- Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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From universities to governments, the Big Five publishers to Amazon, the influence of institutions abounds in US publishing. A diverse array of books from around the globe have been made into world literature in the US, selected by editors, publishers, and bureaucrats, produced by non-profits and for-profit presses of all sizes, and distributed through schools, publishing programs, and bookstores. The resulting world literary canon is the product of complex negotiations between individual preferences and institutional mandates, as well as economic, cultural, and pedagogical logics. While book publishing has fallen increasingly under the sway of global capitalism, yet the literary world remains made up of a series of individuals making choices about whom to fund, teach, translate, edit, and publish. The “world” of world literature, Anna Muenchrath argues, is a heterogeneous network of people whose circulation of literature is necessarily imbricated in the market economy, but whose selections might resist that economy and open new literary futures. Through archival research and close readings, this book considers what those participating are trying to do in circulating a text, and what communities they are helping to form or strengthen.
Making World Literature posits that network theory can effectively model the agency of actors and institutions in the literary field, making visible both the long-term accrual of power, as well as the choices of authors, translators, editors, and readers who do not simply replicate the values of a global literary marketplace, but divert, question, and undermine them. Muenchrath closely examines the paratexts and archival documents surrounding moments of global circulation in and through institutions like US world literature anthologies, the Council of Books in Wartime, the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, Oprah’s Book Club, and Amazon’s translation imprint. The granularity of these case studies reveals the increasingly limited agency of the individual in the global literary field, demonstrating how such players are important actors, and how their choices open up further options for later actors seeking to take texts down new paths toward or after publication.
Making World Literature posits that network theory can effectively model the agency of actors and institutions in the literary field, making visible both the long-term accrual of power, as well as the choices of authors, translators, editors, and readers who do not simply replicate the values of a global literary marketplace, but divert, question, and undermine them. Muenchrath closely examines the paratexts and archival documents surrounding moments of global circulation in and through institutions like US world literature anthologies, the Council of Books in Wartime, the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, Oprah’s Book Club, and Amazon’s translation imprint. The granularity of these case studies reveals the increasingly limited agency of the individual in the global literary field, demonstrating how such players are important actors, and how their choices open up further options for later actors seeking to take texts down new paths toward or after publication.
Anna Muenchrath is assistant professor of English at the Florida Institute of Technology. Her scholarship has appeared in American Literature, Post-45, Journal of World Literature, and Book History.
