The Cultural Sociology of Reading. The Meanings of Reading and Books Across the World

0563103 - ÚČL 2023 RIV CH eng M - Část monografie knihy
Váňa, Jan
The Sociological Truth of Fiction. The Aesthetic Structure of a Novel and the Iconic Experience of Reading.
The Cultural Sociology of Reading. The Meanings of Reading and Books Across the World. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022 - (Thumala Olave, M.), s. 111-139. ISBN 978-3-031-13226-1
Institucionální podpora: RVO:68378068
Klíčová slova: sociology of literature * strong program * iconicity * social aesthetics * structural aesthetics * resonance
Obor OECD: Literary theory

Following the strong program in cultural sociology, I propose a literary turn to recognize literary texts “as relatively autonomous cultural entities” with their own agency. This chapter is part of a larger project connecting cultural sociology with the sociology of literature and literary theory to develop a strong program in the sociology of literature. Instead of approaching literary fiction as an object of analysis, sociology and literature can contribute to social knowledge in a symmetrical way, where fiction is not devalued vis-à-vis social scientific inquiry. Just the opposite: recognizing the specificities of literary communication, we can access textures of social life that are only barely graspable by sociology. A crucial step is to examine how social knowledge comes into existence when reading a fictional text. Embracing the structural aesthetics of Jan Mukařovský, I modify the concept of iconicity to capture the iconic experience of reading through which literature mediates social experience that is iconic of broader social phenomena. Building on social aesthetics, I discuss implications of my model for social theory, textual representation, and sociological explanation in general.
Trvalý link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0339547