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An exchange between literary scholars Carsten Dutt and Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht about the theoretical bases and purpose of literary studies and criticism is presented. Issues addressed include the relationship between literary works and their social and historical context, the study and teaching of the humanities in universities in Germany and the United States, and the social significance of literature.

The article discusses the use of young adult literature to teach secondary school students about the treatment of whiteness in literature through critical conversations. It addresses the use of social justice pedagogy in the classroom, as well as notes the lack of academic conversations about race in secondary education. It uses the lenses of critical literacy and critical race theory to interpret whiteness. Other topics explored include the relationship between characters of different races in literature, multiple representations of whiteness, and reflexivity.

The article discusses contemporary Russian literature and the concept of documentary defined by literary theory and autonomous cultural practice. How literature and culture interact and documentariness is recognized in literary texts is discussed. The semantics and motives that support the literature-culture interaction are also discussed. Literary works surveyed include the books "The Diary of Luisa Lozhkina" by Katia Metelitsa, "Doro" by Vera Khlebnikova, and "Maiden's Hair" by Mikhail Shishkin. The communicative effect of historical literature is discussed.

The article offers the author's insights on the potential of the concept of social network to represent possible directions for interactionist research. The author expands the meaning of network in the context of symbolic interactionist tradition in the contemporary and classical literature. The author notes that the objective of social network analysis (SNA) is to measure the impacts of the trend of relationships on individual behavior and to validate the variation of network configurations.

The article focuses on the theme of tolerance depicted in two books "The Funeral Party" and "Daniel Stein, Interpreter," by Liudmila Ulitskaia, based on the history of Russia in the twentieth century. It states that lives of books' hybrid characters with diverse ethnicities and belief systems, deliver the message of the need for tolerance to resolve social conflicts in Russian culture. Moreover, Ulitskaia's works have raised cultural and religious controversies and criticisms due to the alleged neglect to ethnic Russians and Orthodoxy.

Recent anthropological and other literature tends to assume that the uses of heritage in modern societies lead to the falsification, petrification, desubstantiation, and enclosure of the things and practices so designated. Yet two traditions of Japan's ancient capital Kyoto—the historic town houses (kyô-machiya) that have found a new appreciation since the 1990s and the Gion matsuri, one of the most famous festivals of the nation—contradict these assumptions. Their well-documented histories are not widely distorted; they are not forever fixed but allowed to evolve; they are valued not only for their traditionality but also for other, substantive qualities; and their appreciation is not dominated by a concern for social boundaries. This is influenced by the urban, relatively sophisticated and cosmopolitan background of both traditions, as it is in parallel cases elsewhere. Greater attention to the perspectives of their carriers, however, will very likely show that the social uses of other traditions too are more complex than the standard assumptions lead one to believe. [ Japan, cultural heritage, invention of tradition, vernacular architecture, festivals, urban anthropology] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I provide an ethnographic exploration of some of the terms for imagining knowledge in today's “knowledge society,” and I attempt to situate the kind of “sociology of knowledge” behind this imagination. In particular, I am interested in the sociological imagination of knowledge in terms of a relational economy, in which knowledge flows uninterruptedly to create and shape what Yochai Benkler has dubbed “the wealth of networks.” I pursue this interest through an ethnography of the production of research among humanities scholars at Spain's National Research Council (CSIC). For CSIC's human scientists, books (and other bookish analogues, such as libraries or manuscript collections) occupy a place of prominence in the institutional production of research. This economy of scholarship (between books, between people and books, and between what books do and what institutions and researchers imagine them to do) finds itself at a “disproportionate” distance from the “network economy of information” encountered in the literature on the knowledge economy and promoted in certain circles within CSIC. I contrast the epistemological economies of CSIC scientists' relational and disproportional views on research and, ultimately, attempt to provide an anthropological description of a contemporary sociology of knowledge, including its analytical categories and models. [ knowledge, knowledge economy, relations, proportionality, labor, academia] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author Viviana Zelizer's response to various critiques which were done on his book "The Purchase of Intimacy. In her response she defends against criticisms and judgements which several students, including David Roelfs, Zheng Zhao, and Deidre Caputo-Levin, lodged against arguments and subject matter which were found in the book. A discussion of differences in sociological thought and theory which was seen in the author's writings and the students' beliefs is offered. She suggests that an author has to decide where a book will end and what it will and will not do and that a book that attempts to do everything ends up doing nothing at all.

The social novel ought not to be confused with didacticism in literature and ought not to be expected to provide prescriptions for the cure of social ills. Neither should it necessarily be viewed as ephemeral. After examining justifications of the social novel offered by William Dean Howells (in the 1880s) and Jonathan Franzen (in the 1990s), the author explores the way in which social novels alter perceptions and responses at levels of sensibility that are not usually susceptible to rational argument, push back moral horizons, contribute to the creation of social conscience, and expose the complexity and contextuality of moral discernment. As a concrete example, Howells's 1889 novel A Hazard of New Fortunes is analyzed (and defended against its detractors) in terms of its sophisticated treatment of the dilemmas that arise from a recognition of personal complicity in structural sin, its disclosure of the context-indexed evolution of values, and its attention to the importance and fragility of social trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores the archives of Russian literature concerning Soviet subjectivity. Social relevance of the literature; Significance of Soviet subjectivity to literary studies and textual analysis; Distinction between literature and history; Depiction of characters in literary works.

Focuses on Newbery Medal books which portray ethnic characters and their potential use in effective multicultural education. Children's literature as assistance to the development and extension of issues relevant to living in a multicultural society; Identification and analysis of ethnic or racial groups characterized in Newbery Medal books.

This paper analyzes a characteristic syndrome of modern literature identified as "anxiety of influence" by literary critics and as "mania for originality" by art historians. Based on a sociological reformulation of the syndrome as it relates to the structure of acknowledged influence, the paper develops and tests several hypotheses. Data are based on a survey of West German writers and are analyzed by using clustering techniques and correspondence analysis. First, the analysis demonstrates the fragmented and non-hierarchical structure of acknowledged literaty influence. Second, the different types of influence (absence distinctiveness, and clusterability) correspond to different professional and literary characteristics of writers. Results highlight one of the contradictions between the cultural code and the professional structure of modem an: at the level of ideology, greatness and genius are equated with the absence of influence and artistic uniqueness. The analysis shows, however, that the denial/absence of acknowledged influence is found among writers who are excluded from the professional networks where reputations are made in the world of literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article information related to the result of the survey conducted by Wiley-Blackwell and Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) on its members in the U.S. It states that the survey was conducted as its board of Directors began investigating the feasibility of making the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (JASIST), an open access journal. According to the article, the survey was distributed to a randomly selected group of 2,414 members. In addition, the conducted survey allows to answer various questions related to the ASIS&T including, who are the members, what are the publication trends among the ASIS&T members, and the level of access do ASIS&T members have journal literature.

The article discusses the intergenerational aspects of literacy, particularly noting the social aspects of literature and the transfer of literacy. It comments on poetry written by a member of a senior writing group, provides recommendations for educators interested in intergenerational projects, and explores personal reflections on intergenerational literacy and relations. It addresses the social benefits for both elders and children who participate in an intergenerational literacy project within a community setting.