Die Geschichte der AEsthetik verzeichnet das Verhaltnis von high und low, also von Hoch- und Popularkultur, als ein streng antagonistisches. Andererseits findet in der Gegenwartsliteratur kein Ende, was spatestens mit den historischen Avantgarden programmatisch wurde: Grenzuberschreitungen zu 'illegitimen' Kunstformen, die Integration verschiedener Elemente von Nicht-Kunst sowie eine auffallige Aufwertung des 'Beiwerks', des vermeintlich Sekundaren. Der vorliegende Sammelband untersucht dieses Spannungsverhaltnis an verschiedenen aktuellen Beispielen.

The study attempts to reconstruct Goethe's views on aesthetics prior to the period of Weimar classicism. Here we find very early indications of a tendency toward autonomy in his theory of art and literature. Drawing on Bourdieu's concept of the literary field, Goethe's paradigmatic theoretical writings are subjected to an intertextual microanalysis and at the same time related both to the immediate circumstances of their genesis and artistic points of reference on the one hand and to European contexts on the other. This provides a broader backdrop against which both the specific and the representative aspects of Goethe's non-systematic aesthetic thinking can be usefully reviewed.

In Germany, the debate about the pros and cons of advanced literary sociology sparked off by Pierre Bourdieu's basic work AThe Rules of ArtA has mostly taken place on an abstract level. The present volume is the first collection of essays in German to discuss the applications of field theory for the study of literature in a practical way. The essays are theory-driven but empirically-oriented researches by authors from France, England, Germany, Austria and Switzerland on examples of literature and literary life from the 17th to the 20th century. These contributions extend Bourdiean analysis in a geographical, historical and thematic sense, and constitute, where necessary, a critique and/or further development of his ideas.

The debate on the use and drawbacks of the sociology of literature unleashed by Bourdieua (TM)s seminal work a oeThe Rules of Arta was mainly conducted here on an abstract level. The present volume contains a collection of papers sounding out the applicability of field theory to literary studies. The authors, from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, present theory-led textually based analyses of the present-day literature and culture business.