Literary value in the era of big data. Operationalizing critical distance in professional and non-professional reviews

Salgaro, Massimo

doi:10.22148/001c.36446

Cited by 5 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Many conversations around popular culture also frame popular texts as threatening literary studies (Salgaro, 2022). A stance that forces literary critics and other traditional gatekeepers to further alienate themselves from the inspection of styles of dressing, songs, movies, paintings, advertisements, street signs, and anything from which one can draw meaning (Banerjee, 2021).…”

Section: Lowbrow Text? the Status Of Popular Culture In Literary Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Kaur alternates her texts with images she scribbles herself and uses lowercase letters for traditionally uppercased elements like 'I.' However, millions of fans read her work because it is emotionally relatable, moving, thought-provoking, and sincere (Salgaro, 2022).…”

Section: Theoretical Grounding and Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Drawing on Salgaro's (2022) work on digital social reading, this paper suggests that authors and audiences are moving online and that scholars must follow them there to retain relevance. Salgaro (2022) has studied Rupi Kaur's work at length and argues that the popularity of her work threatens the position of traditional literary critics and reviewers. This paper extends this assessment to publishers, academicians, and other literary studies stakeholders.…”

Section: Theoretical Grounding and Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Somani (2020), mentioned earlier, has looked into Twitterature and the 6-word novel. Salgaro (2022) Finally, this author considers the problems that may arise from combining popular culture with literary studies and looks to the work of Kovala (2002). Kovala notes that the cultural studies field has been in turmoil for decades, with some factions advocating for textual analysis and other scholars preferring to study the context of cultural phenomena.…”

Section: Theoretical Grounding and Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The fact that there is a structure and formula means there is a basis for analysis. Other forms of popular culture writing worth investigating include Instagram poetry (Salgaro, 2022), Texting (Reinecke, 2017), listicles, and even status updates (Pandell, 2016).…”

Section: Positive Impacts Of Reading Popular Culture As Textmentioning

confidence: 99%

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What Next for the ‘Text’? Popular Culture and Literature Today

Maina

2024

JLLCS

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Literary studies have evolved over the past few decades to include popular culture fields as text. Proponents of this inclusion argue that songs, memes, tweets, local dialects, and slogans say as much about people and cultures as traditional texts – perhaps even more. The opinion is that, by over-relying on traditional text for literary fodder, scholars shut themselves off from current and relevant information about the rapidly evolving literary and cultural landscape. The disregard for popular culture also turns away a younger audience that seems to prefer a more informal approach to art and literature. Thus, the reading of popular cultures as text is forcing the literary field to re-evaluate the fundamental principles that define its work. Literary scholars have to rethink their traditional ideals of writing, reading, and teaching texts. Yet, there remains a reluctance to accept such informal forms of communication as memes and tweets as legitimate literature. Popular culture is not well regarded in literary studies and some stakeholders fear its classification as text could dilute the impact of the field. This paper investigates this trepidation by analyzing how reading popular culture fields as text impacts the identity of text in literary studies. Based on selected tenets of Literary and Cultural Studies (LCS) Research, particularly cultural literacy, this paper examines the legitimacy of different popular culture formats to determine if they hold enough value to warrant literary analysis. The author argues that many forms of popular culture deserve a closer look, especially through a literary lens, because they reveal the cultures, beliefs, and practices of their audience. He suggests that the incorporation of popular culture into literary studies offers many opportunities for growth and discovery but only if implemented diligently. Finally, this paper investigates why the literary field is reluctant to read popular cultures as text and how scholars can navigate this inclusion to create a more cohesive definition of text.

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Section: Lowbrow Text? the Status Of Popular Culture In Literary Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Theoretical Grounding and Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Theoretical Grounding and Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Theoretical Grounding and Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Positive Impacts Of Reading Popular Culture As Textmentioning

confidence: 99%

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What Next for the ‘Text’? Popular Culture and Literature Today

Maina

2024

JLLCS

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The Nobel and the Price of Prestige in the 21st Century

English

2023

J. World Lit.

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In the late 20th century, the Nobel Prize enjoyed an unrivaled position as the most powerful instrument of literary consecration. But recent shifts in the relationship between money and prestige, and in the forms of scandal that attend cultural awards, are weakening the Nobel’s symbolic hold. Symptomatic missteps by the Swedish Academy, occurring against a backdrop of increasingly extreme concentration of wealth, have opened a window of opportunity for the founding of a new super-prize better suited than the Nobel to dominate today’s economy of world-literary prestige.

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The Economy of Critical Attention: A Computational Analysis of Roland Barthes’s S/Z

Thong

2024

Modern Language Quarterly

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This article argues for the importance of analyzing distributions of literary-critical attention to understand the shape of our discipline and how it has evolved. The article sees critical attention as a scarce resource in literary economies, both within a single text and at much larger scales—even across time. Circulations of critical attention are directed by filtering models, a concept borrowed from cognitive psychology that refers to how competing demands for attention are prioritized. The accrual of critical attention implicitly signals the location of value in a literary economy. When this accrual (or lack thereof) is quantified using computational methodologies, we can track where critical attention goes, how much of it, and why. As a proof of this concept, the article offers a quantitative analysis of critical attention in Roland Barthes’s S/Z. This work reveals the hidden logics of Barthes’s distribution of critical attention and demonstrates how such analyses can identify the filtering models that operate in our critical tools and practices.

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Literary value in the era of big data. Operationalizing critical distance in professional and non-professional reviews

Cited by 5 publications

References 28 publications

What Next for the ‘Text’? Popular Culture and Literature Today

What Next for the ‘Text’? Popular Culture and Literature Today

The Nobel and the Price of Prestige in the 21st Century

The Economy of Critical Attention: A Computational Analysis of Roland Barthes’s S/Z

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