TY - JOUR

T1 - Fetishizing Intellectual Achievement: The Nobel Prize and European Literary Celebrity

AU - Braun, Rebecca

PY - 2011/11

Y1 - 2011/11

N2 - This paper investigates the concept of literary celebrity within a specifically European context. Following the work of Pascale Casanova and Pierre Bourdieu, it suggests that the Nobel Prize is a specifically European consecrating institution within ‘international literary space’ and that it is both a product of and major contributor to a mid-European, non-market-driven model for valuing high-end cultural achievement. Whilst sharing some of the outer trappings of broader, Anglo-American determined conceptions of celebrity in terms of, for example, the media attention bestowed upon famous authors, this model, with its emphasis on intellectual and moral instruction, functions in a fundamentally different way to transatlantic market-driven models of fame. After exploring the development of the prize in line with the emergence of both wider modern-day celebrity and underlying processes of intellectual fetishization inherent in the French-defined field of restricted cultural production, I consider how individual authors, of both European and non-European nationality, respond to this culturally contingent model of literary celebrity. My analysis focuses both on their formulation of a response at the point of consecration and what their response tells us more generally about the social and cultural value of authorship in a European setting.

AB - This paper investigates the concept of literary celebrity within a specifically European context. Following the work of Pascale Casanova and Pierre Bourdieu, it suggests that the Nobel Prize is a specifically European consecrating institution within ‘international literary space’ and that it is both a product of and major contributor to a mid-European, non-market-driven model for valuing high-end cultural achievement. Whilst sharing some of the outer trappings of broader, Anglo-American determined conceptions of celebrity in terms of, for example, the media attention bestowed upon famous authors, this model, with its emphasis on intellectual and moral instruction, functions in a fundamentally different way to transatlantic market-driven models of fame. After exploring the development of the prize in line with the emergence of both wider modern-day celebrity and underlying processes of intellectual fetishization inherent in the French-defined field of restricted cultural production, I consider how individual authors, of both European and non-European nationality, respond to this culturally contingent model of literary celebrity. My analysis focuses both on their formulation of a response at the point of consecration and what their response tells us more generally about the social and cultural value of authorship in a European setting.

KW - authorship

KW - literary celebrity

KW - Nobel Prize

KW - fetish

KW - intellectual

KW - Jelinek

KW - Pamuk

KW - Naipaul

KW - Celebrity

U2 - 10.1080/19392397.2011.609340

DO - 10.1080/19392397.2011.609340

M3 - Journal article

VL - 2

SP - 320

EP - 334

JO - Celebrity Studies

JF - Celebrity Studies

SN - 1939-2397

IS - 3

ER -