Literary System and Its Institutions

The basic goal of the course is to acquaint students with recent theoretical and historical models of the literary (poly) system / field and to explain their basic concepts. The course also acquaints them with key institutions of the literary system (magazines, publishing houses, theaters, literary awards, festivals and other events). Special attention is paid to the institutions and practices of canonization or. development of the national literary canon as a key material basis of cultural memory.

The successful integration in the study course is connected with the knowledge of other literary-historical and cultural historical formations in the field of Slovenian literature and culture and linguistics.

Lectures:

Familiarisation with newer literary-sociological models:
• literary system (Schmidt)
• literary field (Bourdieu)
• Polysystem theory (Even-Zohar)
Familiarisation the working roles in the literary system
• literary producer, broker, receiver, processor
Familiarisation with literary institutions
• magazines, publishing houses
• theaters
• literary festivals and events
• Literary awards
• literary canon

Seminar: Students deepen the material from lectures by studying independent more complex discussions and chapters; with short presentations and in a moderated discussion they present them to colleagues.

Students master basic literary-historical and theoretical concepts related to newer models of the literary (poly) system / field. They understand the functioning and function of the institutions of the literary system and the mechanisms of canonization. They are able to independently and meaningfully use the acquired knowledge (analyze individual literary institutions, canonization of individual authors, etc.)

• Bourdieu, Pierre. The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1992. Catalogue
• Dović, Marijan. Prešeren po Prešernu: kanonizacija nacionalnega pesnika in kulturnega svetnika = Prešeren after Prešeren: The Canonization of the National Poet and Cultural Saint. Ljubljana: LUD Literatura, 2017. Catalogue
• Dović, Marijan. Slovenski pisatelj: razvoj vloge literarnega proizvajalca v slovenskem literarnem sistemu = The Slovenian Writer: The Development of the Role of the Literary Producer in the Slovenian Literary System. Ljubljana: ZRC SAZU, 2007. Catalogue E-version
• Dović, Marijan. Sistemske in empirične obravnave literature = Systemic and Empirical Approaches to Literature. Ljubljana: ZRC SAZU, 2004. Catalogue
• Even-Zohar, Itamar. Polysystem studies. Poetics today 11.1 1990 (posebna številka/special issue) E-version
• Perenič, Urška. Empirija v literarni vedi. Ljubljana: ZIFF, 2014. Catalogue
• Schmidt, Siegfried J. Die Selbstorganisation des Sozialsystems Literatur im 18. Jahrhundert. Frankfurt ob Majni: Suhrkamp, 1989.

Written exam. The condition to access the written exam is successful.

Marijan Dović is Associate Professor and Senior Research Fellow at the ZRC SAZU Institute of the Slovenian Literature and Literary Studies (Ljubljana). He also lectures at the Faculty of Arts (University of Ljubljana) and School of Humanities (University of Nova Gorica). He published Slovenian books on systemic and empirical approaches to literature (Sistemske in empirične obravnave literature, 2004), the development of the role of the literary producer (Slovenski pisatelj, 2007), the interwar avant-garde (Mož z bombami, 2009), and the canonization of the Slovenian national poet (Prešeren po Prešernu, 2017). With J. K. Helgason, he wrote National Poets, Cultural Saints: Canonization and Commemorative Cults of Writers in Europe (Brill, 2017). He co-edited thematic volumes on literature and censorship, publishing, book history, spatial turn in literary studies, and literature and music. His major publications in English address Romanticism, European cultural nationalism, national poets and “cultural saints”, the literary canon, systems theory, the interwar avant-garde in the Balkans, and the theory of authorship. He is the editor-in-chief of the comparative literature journal Primerjalna književnost (2016–) and a co-editor of the book series Studia litteraria (2018–).

Selected bibliography:
Dović, Marijan. National Poets, Cultural Saints: Canonization and Commemorative Cults of Writers in Europe (with J. K. Helgason). Leiden: Brill, 2017.
Dović, Marijan. Mož z bombami: Anton Podbevšek in slovenska zgodovinska avantgarda [The Man with the Bombs: Anton Podbevšek and the Slovenian Historical Avant-Garde]. Novo mesto: Goga, 2009.
Dović, Marijan. Slovenski pisatelj: razvoj vloge literarnega proizvajalca v slovenskem literarnem sistemu [The Slovenian Writer: The Development of the Role of the Literary Producer in the Slovenian Literary System]. Ljubljana: ZRC SAZU, 2007.
Dović, Marijan. “National Poets and Romantic (Be)Longing: An Introduction.” Arcadia: Zeitschrift fur vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft 52.1 (2017), 1–9.
Dović, Marijan. “From Autarky to ‘Barbarian’ Cosmopolitanism: The Early Avant-Garde Movements in Slovenia and Croatia.” In: Goldwyn, Adam J. (ed.), Silverman, Renée M. (ed.). Mediterranean Modernism: Intercultural Exchange and Aesthetic Development. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 233–250.
Dović, Marijan. “France Prešeren: A Conquest of the Slovene Parnassus.” In: Cornis-Pope, Marcel (ed.), Neubauer, John (ed.). History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe: Junctures and Disjunctures in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins, 2010, vol. IV. 97–109.
Dović, Marijan. “The Slovenian Interwar Literary Avant-Garde and Its Canonization.” In: Bru, Sascha (ed.). Europa! Europa?: The Avant-Garde, Modernism, and the Fate of a Continent. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009. 36–48.
Dović, Marijan, Jernej Habjan in Aleš Vaupotič (ur.). »Kdo izbere?« Literatura in literarno posredništvo / “Who Chooses?” Literature and Literary Mediation. Primerjalna književnost 33.2 (2010).
Dović, Marijan, Jernej Habjan in Marko Juvan (ur.). The Book and the Economy of Cultural Spaces. Primerjalna književnost 35.1 (2012).