Gisèle Sapiro is Professor of Sociology at the EHESS and Senior Researcher at CNRS. She has coedited The Routledge Handbook of the History and Sociology of Ideas (2023) and is author of The Sociology of Literature (Stanford UP, 2023). Sapiro was awarded a Humboldt-Forschungspreis in 2023. Her CAS lecture focuses on the concept of world literature. If world literature is defined as texts that circulate, a sociological approach needs to ask which texts circulate, how do they cross borders (or not), and under what conditions. At the macro scale, one can observe flows of literary translations within the world book market and transnational authorities such as the Nobel prize. At the meso scale, the national fields are the arena for specific competition between intermediaries (publishers, editors, literary agents, state representatives), translators and mediators (critics) around the import and export of literary works. At the micro scale, the focus is to be placed on the strategies of individual actors.
Show more...
