Current research project "Literary concepts of the legal and political elites"
Current research project "Literary concepts of the legal and political elites"
DFG project Ralf Grüttemeier: "A country of mediocre literature". Literary concepts of the legal and political elites in the Netherlands in the 20th century
The project aims to provide relevant building blocks for a history of the Dutch literary field in the 20th century from the perspective of the legal and political elites. This relationship is traditionally conceptualised as an increasing autonomisation of literature and the literary field since the end of the 19th century. In cases of conflict (for example in court proceedings against literary figures or politically motivated marks), literary scholars generally behave like partisans. With the academic appointment of their professional expertise, they usually take on the role of defenders of literary autonomy against any outside influence. In contrast, an analytical meta-perspective is to be used in the project applied for here. In order to reconstruct the view of the legal and political elites on the Dutch literary field in the 20th century, the project examines their professional behaviour as lawyers and politicians towards literature as well as their academic appointments and articulated views on literature, especially with regard to poetics and views on the social function of literature. To this end, sources that have not yet been analysed will be consulted: In the field of politics, all parliamentary debates in which literature played a role will be systematically analysed. At the legal level, all available texts and archival documents of all persons who can be regarded as legal-literary mediators will be consulted, supplementing and contextualising the trial documents examined so far: on the one hand, the lawyers who played a role in Dutch literary trials and, on the other, Dutch lawyers who regularly published on literature. This reconstruction of the view from the outside will then be placed in relation to the state of research in Dutch literary history and field theory. In this way, the project aims in particular to examine the extent to which the delayed development of the Dutch literary field can also be explained by a relatively low appreciation of modern Dutch literature among the Dutch legal and political elites - for which there is some evidence.
The results with regard to the Netherlands will be examined from a comparative perspective towards the end of the project at a conference with the working title "Literature and the Field of Power from an International Comparative Perspective". In this context, the project will also develop and discuss theses regarding a more precise theoretical model of the constantly changing power relations between the literary field and the field of power.
DFG project Ralf Grüttemeier: "A country of mediocre literature". Literary concepts of the juridical and political elites in the Netherlands in the 20th century
The project aims at writing relevant parts of a history of the Dutch literary field in the 20th century from the perspective of the juridical and political elites. This relation has usually been described in terms of a growing autonomisation of literature since the end of the19th century. In case of conflict (for example around literary trials or political censorship) most literary scholars act as a party in a conflict, that is: as defenders of literary autonomy. In the present project, however, an analytical meta-perspective on the conflicting parties will be taken. By looking at the Dutch literary field through the eyes of the juridical and political elites, the project starts out to reconstruct the professional behaviour and views towards literature of those outside the literary field, especially concerning their poetic preferences and ideas on the societal function and status of literature. In order to do so, the project will use sources that have been neglected so far: concerning politics, it will analyse systematically all parliamentary debates in which literature has played a role. Concerning law, and in addition to the documents from trials that the applicant has used in earlier research, the project will look at all available texts from all persons that can be taken as juridical-literary mediators in the Netherlands of the20th century: lawyers in Dutch literary trials and jurists that regularly publish on literature. This reconstruction of the views and professional behaviour from those outside the literary field will then be held against the state of art of Dutch literary scholarship with regard to literary history and field-theory. This way, the project will add a further dimension to the picture of the Dutch literary field and thereby promises a more adequate reconstruction and a more plausible explanation of its comparatively delayed development in the20th century. Especially, it will investigate the indications that the Dutch elites show more reservations towards their own (in casu: Dutch) modern literature than other nations. Accordingly, at the end of the project, the specificity of the Dutch case will be discussed a workshop (with the working title "Literature and the Field of Power from an International Comparative Perspective"), exploring in how far the results concerning the Netherlands offer fruitful perspectives for other literary fields and/or for a more detailed theoretical model of the ever changing and contested power-balance between the literary field and the field of power.