Sociology of Literature

This graduate seminar approaches literature as a social practice—a network of relations among writers, editors, institutions, technologies, and readers. Drawing from literary studies, sociology, and anthropology, we trace the life cycle of the literary work: from the writer’s workshop and the archive, through the institutions that publish, circulate, and preserve it, to the interpretive communities and fan cultures that sustain it.

Core readings pair theoretical frameworks (Bourdieu, Becker, Williams) with empirical ethnographies and case studies (Childress, Radway, Jenkins). The course concludes by examining co-authorship and conspiracy as collective forms of storytelling that test the limits of individual authorship and belief.