Search

The market as a promoter of style. Book publishers, mediation and rhetorization around the last turn of the century Inspired by Franco Moretti’s distant reading, this article explores how economical and ideological changes in the market affect the form and content of literature. By examining a small but distinct genre, novels and short stories about the Norrland forests and the industrialization process, the article discusses the relation between the increased book production, the many newly established publishing houses, the emergence of the market writer and the formation and reception of the genre. Also, the marketing of literature through book covers is shown to have a formative function for the genre because of the artistic imagery of the northern landscape and the general rhetorization in society of the concept of forest and Norrland.

Between 1982 and 1993 the folk music group Euskefeurat released six LPs and gave numerous live performances. As well as being entertaining they also played an important role as subversive cultural critics of the political and environmental circumstances in the north of Sweden, Norrland. This essay highlights three central themes in the lyric production of Euskefeurat: class conflicts, the relationship between centre and periphery and landscape as an arena for value conflicts. The authors argue that these perspectives are neglected today in Swedish popular culture discourse, where urban art directors and Internet-consultants are more in fashion than workers and small farmers in the countryside. The essay asks a concluding question: can contemporary popular music (as hip-hop) channel cultural expressions that capture regional experiences and dilemmas in Norrland?