The Section for the Sociology of Literature

The Section for the Sociology of Literature was founded in 1965 by Lars Furuland (1928–2009). Together with Bo Bennich-Björkman (1926–2010) and a number of other people, Furuland built Uppsala’s Department of the Sociology of Literature into a broad research-focused instution that includes both analysis of literary works and studies of literature's external conditions.

The ambition has been to shed light on the entire literary process – the path and conditions of the literary work from author to reader, via publishers, critics, bookstores, libraries, schools. A large part of the research has also been devoted to forgotten and marginalized forms of literature, among them workers' literature, popular literature, children's and youth literature, emigrant literature and amateur literature.

Among the other areas of the sociology of literature are, for example, popular movements such as cultural environments, author identity and author livelihood, taste formation and the literary field, publishing statistics, publishing history, library history, historical and contemporary reader research, literary canon, the importance of computerization for literary culture. Read a more detailed presentation of the sociological perspective of literature and various research efforts based on it.

Contact

The head of the Section for the Sociology of Literature is Ann Steiner.

Research and Publications

The Section for the Sociology of Literature has long worked with larger externally financed research projects and profile area that gathers more researchers.

Research Projects:

Some of the current and newly finished projects are:

Profile Areas

  • Afterwar Swedish book market and Swedish literature’s way out into the world
  • Author identity and author livelihood in Sweden, approx. 1810-2010

Publications

The Section publishes the following journal series:

These are listed under the department's publications pages and some abstracts are available online.

Researchers
  • Sarah Allison, Loyola University, New Orleans
  • Malin Nauwerk, The Department of Literature, Uppsala University
  • Anna Nordlund, The Department of Pedagogy, Didactics and Educational Studies, Uppsala University
Last modified: 2023-06-30