DFG research project "Literary concepts of the legal and political elites" (completed)
DFG research project "Literary concepts of the legal and political elites" (completed)
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 has provided evidence that the investigation of the concepts of literature within the Dutch legal and political elites can provide relevant building blocks for a more precise history of the Dutch literary field in the 20th century. Sources that have not yet been analysed were consulted for this purpose. In the field of politics, the parliamentary debates from 1900 to the 21st century in which literature played a role were systematically analysed. At the legal level, all available texts and archives of all persons who acted as lawyers in the most important Dutch literary trials were consulted in order to supplement and contextualise the trial documents examined to date. These sources were supplemented in a pilot study by interviews conducted in the project with three judges at the highest Dutch courts, who were asked about their literary preferences. The view of the legal and political elites on literature reconstructed on this source basis proved to be more homologous than expected with regard to contemporary literary concepts at the centre of the literary field. This homology was decisively shaped in two waves of autonomisation, one around 1920 and one in the 1960s, which were driven by the literary as well as the legal and political elites. Not only did these waves essentially shape the Dutch literary field as we know it today, but also the legal and political elites' view of literature. Based on an understanding of literature inspired by the Tachtigers, these represent concepts of literature that are more strongly influenced by pragmatic poetological tendencies than the poetics that dominated the centre of the literary field from the 1960s onwards. A computer-aided comparison of literary references (so-called mentions) in Dutch, German and British parliamentary debates for the period 1994-2018 also provided further empirical evidence of a relatively low appreciation of modern Dutch literature among Dutch legal and political elites. The computational mentions approach developed in the project has not only demonstrated great methodological potential as an instrument for empirically based, international comparative studies on the relationship between literature and the field of power: It also promises innovative potential for the field of digital humanities as a whole.
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 has demonstrated that examining the concepts of literature within Dutch legal and political elites can provide relevant building blocks for clarifying the history of the literary field in the Netherlands in the 20th century. To this end, previously unexamined sources were consulted. In the field of politics, parliamentary debates from 1900 to the 21st century in which literature played a role were systematically analysed. At the legal level, in addition to and contextualising the trial documents examined to date, all available texts and archival materials of all persons who acted as lawyers in the most important Dutch literary trials were consulted. In a pilot study, these sources were supplemented by interviews conducted as part of the project with three judges from the highest Dutch courts, who were asked about their literary preferences. The view of literature held by legal and political elites, reconstructed on the basis of these sources, proved to be more homologous with contemporary literary concepts at the centre of the literary field than expected. This homology was significantly shaped by two waves of autonomisation, one around 1920 and one in the 1960s, which were driven by both literary and legal and political elites. These waves not only fundamentally shaped the Dutch literary field as we know it today, but also the views of legal and political elites on literature. Based on an understanding of literature inspired by the Tachtigers, these elites advocate literary concepts that are more strongly influenced by pragmatic poetological tendencies than the poetics that have dominated the centre of the literary field since the 1960s. A computer-assisted comparison of literary references (so-called mentions) in Dutch, German, and British parliamentary debates for the period 1994-2018 provided further empirical evidence of a relatively low appreciation of modern Dutch literature among Dutch legal and political elites. The computational mentions approach developed in the project has not only demonstrated high methodological potential as a tool for empirically based, internationally comparative studies on the relationship between literature and the field of power: it also promises innovation potential for the field of digital humanities as a whole.