Courses / Module

"Literature is a feature of contemporary cultural and social life with myriad existences and manifestations. Literature is assigned cultural positions which can render it a harmless leisure activity or a force for social change. In recent decades the notion of the “creative economy” has swept up literary production and consumption to the extent that critic Sarah Brouillette argues that even the “authentic self” associated with the creative writer has come to have a “market value”. Through critical reading and case studies this module will examine the ways in which literature is engaged with and consumed in our time. The module begins with an examination of the “sociology of literature” and its current declensions, and then moves on to case studies of cultural manifestations of the literary, its construction, distribution and consumption. Students will hear directly from cultural literary and practitioners (for example, writers, editors, organisers of literary festivals, reading groups, writing groups) and will develop a research essay during the module which will concentrate on a specific example of literary production/consumption.
Possible research topics include: the role of writing groups for children and adults; literature and tourism; the literary festival industry; reviewing cultures of newspapers, magazines and online; the funding of literary organisations; curriculum development and choices in schools and third-level; literary celebrity; literary journals; new digital literatures.

Indicative reading:
Sarah Brouillette, Literature and the Creative Economy (Stanford University Press)
Zygmunt Bauman and Riccardo Mazzeo, In Praise of Literature (Polity)
Peter Boxall, The Value of the Novel (Cambridge University Press)
Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production (Polity)
Gerald Raunig et al, Critique of Creativity: Precarity, Subjectivity and Resistance in ‘Creative Industries’ (MayFlyBooks)
Amy Hungerford, Making Literature Now (Stanford University Press)
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