Mapping Contemporary Women's Fiction after Bourdieu

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Notes

¹Bourdieu's key concepts recur widely throughout his extensive body of work. To simplify matters, I shall, in each case, give a couple of references from his work that specifically relate to culture. See, on disinterestedness (1984), pp. 53–6 and (1993b), p. 49.

²On Bourdieu's meaning of the term ‘field’, see Chapters 1 and 5 (1993a). Chapter 1 (1993a) and (1996), pp. 81–5 discuss the ‘economic world reversed’.

³I use the masculine pronoun here in recognition that most of Bourdieu's work has been on the male artist.

⁴See Bourdieu (1983) on his concept of capital.

⁵See Hipsky (2000) for an interesting, comparative mapping of the British literary field, 1880–1900, in which Hipsky focuses on the woman author, particularly Mrs Humphrey Ward.

⁶The cupboard is not completely bare. In addition to Moi (1994 and 1999) and Hipsky (2000) see, Fowler (1991 and 1997); Harri es (1997); Singley (2003); Eagleton (2005).

⁷Of course, there are also analyses to be done of other genres and other national identities as is suggested by the work of Dowson and Entwistle (2005), Griffin (2003) or Howells (2003).

⁸See Eagleton (1996) and Hemmings (2005) for further comment on the politics of inclusion and exclusion.

⁹On the ‘creator of the creators’, see Bourdieu (1993a), pp. 76–7; (1993b), pp. 139–48; (1996), pp. 166–73. On book clubs, see Radway (1997), Hartley and Turvey (2002) and Long (2003). Radway makes use of the work of Bourdieu in her study.

¹⁰On the role The Women's Press played in the promotion of Afro-American women's writing, see Murray (2004).

¹¹Maya Angelou, though now largely absent from university curricula, has continued as a writer on the English GCSE syllabus though, as government ministers once again re-vamp the syllabus, this is now in doubt. Alice Walker's presence in university curricula is, again, much reduced.

¹²Atwood is actually speaking here, defensively, with respect to Alice Munro and Carol Shields.

¹³Jonathan Franzen was chosen for Oprah's Book Club for The Corrections (2001), expressed reservations and was then dropped. The ensuing media coverage and his defence of his comments is another example of the intensity of struggles over cultural and symbolic capital.

¹⁴Though not included in my listing, it is Waters, rather than Smith, who is entered in Renison (2005). This bio/bibliographical reference book covers fifty contemporary writers. In his Preface, Smith and Waters are mentioned together, Waters included because she has published three novels by the time of Renison's cut-off date, Smith mentioned as likely to be included in any future edition.

¹⁵See also Bourdieu (1987).

¹⁶The le creuset reference comes from Winterson's story about seducing married women who always rewarded her with a piece of le creuset.

¹⁷For explanations of the term, habitus, see Bourdieu (1977) and (1990).

¹⁸See, for example, the comments by Winterson on the material and intellectual effects of poverty in the profile by Angela Lambert (Feb., 1998).

¹⁹Though there is insufficient space to discuss the issue here, the flexibility of age with respect to distinction and duration is a factor. From the names mentioned above, Murdoch (born 1919) and Spark (born 1918) are now dead; Lessing was born in 1919, Morrison in 1931, Byatt in 1936 and Drabble in 1939. It seems that once you reach a certain age, a difference of even 20 years is inconsequential.