TY - JOUR A1 - Anheier, Helmut K. A1 - Gerhards, Jürgen T1 - Literary Myths and Social Structure JF - Social Forces N2 - 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. KW - Writers KW - Social structures KW - Poetry KW - Authors KW - Folk culture KW - High culture KW - Cultural customs KW - Social networking KW - Literary criticism KW - Prophets Y1 - 1991 U6 - https://doi.org/10.2307/2579476 VL - 69 IS - 3 SP - 811 EP - 830 PB - Oxford Univ. Press CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Anheier, Helmut K. A1 - Gerhards, Jürgen T1 - The Literary Field: An Empirical Investigation of Bourdieu's Sociology of Art JF - International Sociology N2 - Bourdieu describes the structure of society as a result of class conflicts and status competition. Art in general, and the literary field in particular, is interpreted as a differentiated social field that is autonomous in the sense that it follows its own logic - the competition for cultural legitimation. What literature has in common with other social systems is the stratification of its internal structure into a hierarchical arrangement. Thus the literary field can be described as a horizontally differentiated system that is, however, vertically differentiated internally. The concern of the paper is to test Bourdieu's theoretical considerations empirically. Data for the analysis and interpretation are based on interviews of Cologne writers. The data are analysed with the aid of blockmodel and correspondence analysis. As far as the data allows us to operationalise the thesis that the literary field is an autonomous differentiated system, Bourdieu's thesis is confirmed. The internal structure can be described more precisely: the first line of demarcation is, in fact, the difference that Bourdieu described between legitimate and illegitimate art: high-culture literature and low-culture literature are the two poles of the literary field. The realm of the legitimate literature is further differentiated into three blocks (elite, junior elite, periphery). The elite and the periphery differ in terms of the different degrees of success. The junior elite occupies an intermediate place. Bourdieu's sociology of literature is supported by the empirical material at hand. Y1 - 1989 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/026858089004002002 SN - 0268-5809 VL - 4 IS - 2 SP - 131 EP - 146 PB - Sage CY - London [u.a.] ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Anheier, Helmut K. A1 - Gerhards, Jürgen A1 - Romo, Frank P. T1 - Forms of Capital and Social Structure in Cultural Fields: Examining Bourdieu's Social Topography JF - American Journal of Sociology N2 - 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. KW - Economic capital KW - High culture KW - Writers KW - Social structures KW - Social capital KW - Literary criticism KW - Corporate culture KW - Cultural customs KW - Authors KW - Cultural groups Y1 - 1995 SN - 0002-9602 VL - 100 IS - 4 SP - 859 EP - 903 PB - University of Chicago Press CY - Chicago ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Anheier, Helmut K. A1 - Gerhards, Jürgen T1 - Der Mythos vom Schriftsteller und was dahinter steckt: Ein empirischer Beitrag zur Basis-Überbauproblematik JF - Journal für Sozialforschung Y1 - 1993 SN - 0253-3995 VL - 33 IS - 2 SP - 121 EP - 138 PB - Zentrum CY - Wien ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Anheier, Helmut K. A1 - Gerhards, Jürgen T1 - Zur Sozialposition und soziale Netzwerke von Schriftstellern? JF - Zeitschrift für Soziologie N2 - Der Aufsatz interpretiert die Ergebnisse einer Befragung von Kölner Schriftstellern. Mit Hilfe der Blockmodellanalyse werden die Autoren in vier Subgruppen (Elite, Nachwuchselite, Peripherie, etablierte Peripherie) eingeteilt. Die Subgruppen werden in ihrer Binnenstruktur und in ihrem Verhältnis zueinander näher bestimmt. In einem zweiten Schritt wird der Frage nachgegangen, inwieweit es sich bei der Sozialposition des Literaten um eine ökonomisch, ästhetisch und sozial instabile Position handelt und welche Beziehungsmuster in der Lage sind, die instabile Position abzufedern und zu integrieren. Für die vier Subgruppen ergeben sich dabei unterschiedliche Positions- und Beziehungsmuster. Y1 - 1987 SN - 0340-1804 VL - 16 IS - 5 SP - 385 EP - 394 PB - F. Enke Verlag CY - Stuttgart ER -