From Product Placement to Boundary Work: Further Steps towards an Integrated Sociology of Literary Communication

Abstract This essay aims at integrating conceptions of literary markets, marketing, and marketability into the study of literature. To combine textual and sociological analysis I look at spatial and spatializing strategies on various levels of literary communication: as fictional settings, as authorial placements, as reading situations, and publishing platforms. My contribution draws on Bourdieu’s interest in the economic side of literature as well as on more recent studies by Jim Collins and David Alworth, who have taken closer looks at the ecologies and affiliations linking literature to consumer culture and its affordances of product placement.