Capital, field, illusio. Can Bourdieu's sociology help us understand the development of literature in medieval Iceland?
Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology has its origin in his ethnographic work on the honor-based society of Kabyllia a region of Algeria. It is from this work as an ethnographer that he developed his concepts of different types of capital in modern society, especially symbolic and cultural capital. In my pap...
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| Format: | Other/Unknown Material |
| Language: | English |
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Universität Tübingen
2004
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10900/46218 http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:21-opus-10805 |
| Summary: | Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology has its origin in his ethnographic work on the honor-based society of Kabyllia a region of Algeria. It is from this work as an ethnographer that he developed his concepts of different types of capital in modern society, especially symbolic and cultural capital. In my paper I will discuss what new understanding Bourdieu’s sociology of culture may bring to the study of the relationship between saga-writing and the society which fostered it. Basing myself on the example of Snorri Sturluson and his milieu, I will show what role cultural activities such as saga-writing may have had for actors in early thirteenth-century society. An investigation of the different types of capital available to these actors will show the interrelationship between cultural activities and power-broking. However, the evidence also indicates that literature may also have begun to have an independent status as a cultural endeavour and opens the question whether there was an embryonic literary field in medieval Iceland which might explain the extent of the literary activity during the period. |
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