Table Of ContentBourdieu and Culture
BOURDIEU AND CULTURE
Derek Robbins
SAGE Publications
London · Thousand Oaks · New Delhi
© Derek Robbins 2000
First published 2000
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
A catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library
ISBN 0 7619 6043 0
ISBN 0 7619 6044 9 (pbk)
Library of Congress catalog card number available
Typeset by Dorwyn Ltd, Rowlands Castle, Hampshire
Printed in Great Britain by Athenaeum Press, Gateshead
For my wife, Diana,
and our sons, Oliver and Felix.
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction xi
Part I The Career
Chapter 1 An insider/outsider Frenchman 1
Part Π The Concepts
Chapter 2 The socio-genesis of the thinking instruments 25
Chapter 3 Production, reception and reproduction 42
Part III The Case Studies
Chapter 4 Flaubert and the social ambivalence of literary
invention 67
Chapter 5 Courrèges, the fashion system and anti-semiology 80
Chapter 6 Manet, the Musée d'Orsay, and the installation of art 93
Part IV The Criticisms
Chapter 7 Evaluating fragmented responses 105
Chapter 8 Meta-criticism: charting interminable territory 121
Conclusion: Commending the Bourdieu paradigm: the sociologist as
conceptual artist 137
Bibliography 141
Index 153
Acknowledgements
This book has been long delayed. This is not the place to describe the
problems which arose with another publisher, but I am all the more grate-
ful to Sage for moving so quickly to offer a contract for producing a revised
text. In particular, I should like to thank Chris Rojek for his encourage-
ment and support and I hope this publication will add to the reputation of
Sage's list in relation to theory, culture and society in general and to its
honourable record in advancing discussion of the work of Bourdieu by the
publication of his texts and of constructive critical analysis such as that
offered by Bridget Fowler in Pierre Bourdieu and Cultural Theory. Critical
Investigations (1997).
Much of the research for this book has been undertaken 'on the ground'
in Paris, but, in London, I am indebted to the librarians of the University of
East London for their diligent pursuit of my inter-library loan requests.
The services of the British Library have, as always, been essential. Occa-
sional visits to Paris have been funded from the allocation to UEL's Sociol-
ogy unit of assessment following the 1996 Research Assessment Exercise.
In Paris, I am grateful to the librarians in the Sorbonne and the Maison des
Sciences de l'Homme, and, in relation to my chapter on Manet, I benefited
particularly from the help of Jacques Thuillier of the Collège de France and
of the administration of the Musée d'Orsay. I have valued the intellectual
support which has been provided by the team of researchers in the Centre
de Sociologie de l'Education et de la Culture in the Maison des Sciences de
l'Homme, now under the direction of Rémi Lenoir, and I have also appre-
ciated the accommodation facilities which have been available through the
good offices of Jean-Michel Ageron of the Paris American Academy.
Many of the thoughts in this book were tentatively articulated in sessions
with students at UEL and I acknowledge the influence of discussions with
students who have followed the third year Anthropology unit on Bourdieu
that I have taught since 1995. Paramount, of course, is my indebtedness to
Pierre Bourdieu himself and to staff associated with his work at the Collège
de France - notably Marie-Christine Rivière, Rosine Christin and
Gabrielle Balazs. As a team, they have been unreservedly open in their
willingness to produce documents, papers, references or contacts in spite of
the awesome workload that falls to a small workforce.
As for Pierre Bourdieu himself, I can only say that this work is offered
with respect and deference. I have had the good fortune in my career to have
had contact with three intellectuals who could be said to be 'charismatic' -
Leavis, Williams and Bourdieu. Encounters with the first two were disap-
