Die Formation der Gegenwartsliteratur

Abstract

The study is an example of a history of literature in terms of the field theory developed by Pierre Bourdieu. Arguing for a “long perspective” it shows the formation of contemporary literature, leaving behind post-war literature, as a structural transformation of the German literary field(s) since the sixties. The main transformation concerns a shifting of the mode of reproduction from the vertical axis of domination to the horizontal axis of social differentiation. The expansion of an intermediate field between the field of restricted production and the field of large-scale production in the nineties is counterbalanced by strengthened strategies of distinction in the upper sector of literary nobility.