@article{AnheierGerhardsRomo, author = {Anheier, Helmut K. and Gerhards, J{\"u}rgen and Romo, Frank P.}, title = {Forms of Capital and Social Structure in Cultural Fields: Examining Bourdieu's Social Topography}, series = {American Journal of Sociology}, volume = {100}, journal = {American Journal of Sociology}, number = {4}, publisher = {University of Chicago Press}, address = {Chicago}, issn = {0002-9602}, pages = {859 -- 903}, abstract = {This article tests one key assumption of Bourdieu's theory of culture fields: that actors are positioned in a "topography" of social relations according to their endowments of economic, social, and cultural capital. Blockmodeling procedures are used to analyze data on German writers and to indentify a social structure in which positions vary according to the types and amounts of capital accumulated. A strong split between elite and marginal writers dominates the social structure, and even the fundamental distinction between high and low culture is embedded in this bipartition. Significant differences in both cultural and social capital distinguish elite from nonelite positions; within this bipartition, pronounced differences in cultural capital separate high and low culture. Relative to cultural and social capital, economic capital plays a lesser role in understanding the social structure of cultural fields.}, language = {en} } @article{AnheierGerhards, author = {Anheier, Helmut K. and Gerhards, J{\"u}rgen}, title = {Literary Myths and Social Structure}, series = {Social Forces}, volume = {69}, journal = {Social Forces}, number = {3}, publisher = {Oxford Univ. Press}, address = {Oxford}, doi = {10.2307/2579476}, pages = {811 -- 830}, abstract = {The lives of writers are subject to a variety of myths. This article shows that such cultural perceptions of writers bear a close affinity to the social structure of literature in modern societies. Two structural properties seem to encourage the proliferation of myths about writers: (1) the existence of a group of prominent writers who occupy unique social positions and form an amorphous elite and (2) the relation between the elite and the large group of lesser-known, peripheral writers. Elite amorphousness and high relational density among the elite and peripheral "groupness" and sparseness of literary relations among the periphery emerge as two major properties of the social structure. These counterintuitive properties are useful in understanding myth generation in literature; they allow for competing "views" of the social structure, views that seem to develop into contradictory myths of the modern writer. Data on several types of ties among writers were collected and analyzed with block model techniques.}, language = {en} }