Utopian Longing and Literary Futures – Roxanne Rimstead
Roxanne Rimstead is a professor at the University of Sherbrooke, best known for her book on poverty narratives, arguing that the economic class we are born in will influence our style of writing and experiences. She primarily teaches courses in cultural studies and how subsets of different cultures (such as prisons) will enable a certain type of discourse to be shared in a literary format.
In this short article, titled Utopian Longing and Literary Futures, Rimstead emphasizes the need to build an understanding of the writing that is produced from oppressed populations. She claims that through understanding the populations that are silenced through our present economic system, it is then that we can become properly critical of the existing system and then move towards a brighter, more inclusive and communicative future for the whole of the population. Three main tenets are suggested in order to achieve this. Firstly, creating a community that translates work from across the diverse cultures and languages in Canada, French and English, Aboriginal languages, and then progressing forward into other languages as well – not merely bilingual, but what the Canadian population truly represents.
Rimstead also suggests that academia be changed to create a ‘youth literary journal’ that is not based solely on grades, and that offers bursaries to diverse voices within the Canadian population. Extending on this point, it would also mean including academes of all levels on projects together, encouraging and creating funds for young scholars to go to conferences and work on extensive projects with more established professionals.
Lastly, Rimstead emphasizes the need to focus on public forms of art and narrative, ones that extend beyond the academic world. This point is paralleled in York’s article, that it is important to pay attention to the art of the every day, whether it is for capitalist production, or from a more grassroots initiative, where subcultures use various platforms to create a voice for their group. Looking at alternative means of storytelling, the Storycorps project, funded by NPR, could be an example of a media outlet that allows individuals of all backgrounds to share their stories, by interviewing someone they know and adding this person’s wisdom to the Storycorps database for all to see.
Reading Under Neoliberalism – Lee Konstantinou (Laura Savoie)
Lee Konstantinou is an associate professor of English as the University of Maryland. He contributes frequently to the online journal, Arcade. This particular post was in response to Joshua Landy’s work on the importance of challenging readers. In this blog post, Konstantinou debates the validity of literary works in a Neoliberal market.
Konstantinou argues that the decline of poetry, and similarly challenging literary texts in the public market is due to changes in publishing and reading priorities. He also posits that the public’s perception of and appreciation for the literary arts has eroded. Konstantinou acknowledges the proliferation of successful creative writing programs, but wonders at the demand for all of this excellent writing.
This blog post acknowledges that conglomerate-owned publishers place profits above all else. As a result, midlist authors are not published, and editors no longer take chances on new authors for fear of losing money. The result is a public market flooded with literary look a likes and easily consumed work. (Some believe that writing a good novel means following ten easy steps) Konstantinou fears that the reading public is losing it’s connections to literary writers.
This idea of a split between literature for the public market and those for academics, relates strongly to Roland Barthes theory of the oppositional nature of ‘readerly’ or ‘writerly’ texts. Readerly texts are easy to understand, and do not challenge the readers perceptions of the world or the linear progressions of storytelling. Writerly texts, however, challenge the reader’s perceptions with a multitude of meanings and narrative structures. Writerly texts force the reader to make meaning for themselves (“Roland Barthes”)
Konstantinou wonders is literature has a public mission. It is either that it benefits the lives of the readers through enrichment and pleasure, or that literature affords nothing that an engaging television show does. The author believes personally that every person would benefit from being able to, and wanting to, read a long, difficult, and rewarding novel.
Bye-bye Borders: Neoliberalism in Publishing III – Jeffrey R. Di Leo (Laura Savoie)
In this article, Jeffrey Di Leo images the future of publishing and book-selling as a result of neoliberalism. He argues that one of the most visible signs of neoliberalism in publishing has been the decline of independent booksellers and the rise of book superstores (think Bares and Noble or Chapters). Mass market bookstores like these have a small team of buyers who make vital purchasing decisions for the entire chain of stores. This homogenizes the literature offered here because the buyers are reluctant to take chances on backlist titles or new authors.
However, book superstores are slowly declining as well , as a result of the popularity of eBooks and online shopping. Amazon alone will soon be responsible for over half of all book sales in the United States. This may actually benefit smaller publishing houses and developing authors as the digital marketplace is less competitive and their work can be searched or sourced by tags that connect narratives to the kind of people who will appreciate them.
Globalizations, academic capitalism and the uneven geographies of international journal publishing spaces – Anssi Paasi (Dilinie Perera)
In this article, Paasi draws attention to difficulties and issues with unbiased knowledge production of the social sciences on a global scale, in the space of academic journal publishing. Within the space of the Anglo-American academic journals, there is a residual idea that in order to protect and preserve traditions of different geographies, barriers that insolate that knowledge should be broken through the learning of English globally. Through this language then, the flow of knowledge would not be stilted and the global community could work to preserve those traditions.
Passi draws issue to this as not only does this translation lose bits and pieces of the original knowledge, but the Anglo-American publishing community has its own system in determining what genres are worth publishing, which operates in a very market-like manner. As such, what is actually allowed within the public sphere of knowledge is only a small portion of what is being produced. What this is leading to, according to Passi, is a homogenization of the social science. While Passi is talking about a genre on a global scale, I feel that the same ideas could be to describe publishing and knowledge production in the Anglo-American space of Canada.
Be Suspicious of Stories – Tyler Cowen (Dilinie Perera)
In this short video, Cowen cautions his audience to the dangers of simple stories. He explains that with everything that is presented in a nice, clean, tied up fashion, there is something that is being left out. As our lives are always in a state of messiness, there is no feasible way that the stories about us are, or should be, extremely tidy. Cowen goes on to say that when a speaker or author chooses to simplify a story there are several outcomes that develop from that. The general ones he mentions, which he points out is also a reduction, are: stories end up too simplified, they present only absolutes – like good and evil – with no gray, and the publishers of stories – i.e. the market and the politicians – dictate what stories we have and do not have. With each expansion of these three ideas, Cowen explains why reducing a narrative into a more easily consumable package is dangerous and why all human beings need to wary of the stories they take in and the ones they produce themselves.
Works Cited
Cowen, Tyler. “Be Suspicious of Stories.” TedTALKS. 8 November 2009, https://www.ted.com/talks/tyler_cowen_be_suspicious_of_stories.
Di Leo, Jeffrey R. “Bye-bye Borders: Neoliberalism in Publishing III”. American Book Review 32.2 (2011): Project Muse. Web. 15 Aug 2016.
Fee, Margery ed. “50th Anniversary Interventions.” Spec. issue of Canadian Literature 204 (2010) Print.
Konstantinou, Lee. “Reading Under Neoliberalism” Arcade. 23 Feb 2010. Web. 10 Aug 2016.
Paasi, Anssi. “Globalisation, academic capitalism, and the uneven geographies of international journal publishing spaces.” Environment and Planning A, vol. 37, no. 5, 2005., pp. 769-789
“Roland Barthes: Understanding Text”. University of Waterloo, Arts, n.d, http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~raha/700_701_web/BarthesLO/readerly.html
Hi there Team Blue.
Lee Konstantinou’s research seems both fascinating and pressing. He is right to posit that literary production is driven by the capitalistic goals of publishers, and that the realities of a neoliberal marketplace will influence what kind of literature is mass-produced. As you have noted, this leads to the kind of cookie-cutter, “readerly” literature that is oft-lamented in academic and critical circles. However, beyond attempting to appeal to some public drive for knowledge and intellectual progress buried deep beneath the surface, it seems that the drive for more “writerly texts” will remain within the ivory tower.
Here, you express a concern that the current way which literature is consumed under neoliberalism is stifling intellectual development and making it more difficult for the masses to achieve some kind of “benefit.” Could this go a step further? Does a lack of access to “writerly” literature harm society in ways more foundational than personal benefit? By mass-producing a ‘simpler’ form of literature (so to speak), our society has mass-produced people who do not and will not learn about knowledge systems and worldviews apart from their own and those essentialized in popular novels. In this way, neoliberalism reinforces racism, essentialism, and cultural imperialism within our society and against minorities.
Given that there are dire and foundational consequences to the mass-production of “readerly” literature, how do you think we could get around these problems, keeping in mind that we cannot simply discuss ‘changing the system.’ Neoliberalism and capitalism are realities that we live within and benefit from despite their inherent problems. What realistic options do we have to push forward more “writerly” literature so that we can expand our society’s knowledge of other knowledges and worldviews?
Hi Nick 🙂
Loved your comments and questions. You really drove home everything that I was thinking about while I was making the bibliography. I think it’s true that cookie-cutter literature fails to represent the actual world, and threatens the idea of creativity and individuality. I also think that ‘writerly’ texts, are powerful tools in learning to think critically. And thinking critically is a powerful tool in changing the status quo.
As far as ways to get around this problem, I think it comes down to individuals. Whether that’s people who run book clubs, or librarians who recommend off-the-beaten-path literature. Maybe even something like writers who are able to self-publish, or publish their work online? The problem is that asking these writers to put their work out there and either a) pay a lot to have it self-published or b) release their work to the bowels of the internet, is relegating them to the edges of capitalism again and denying them fair compensation for their work. I’m still looking into ways around that, ways to be a part of the system while criticizing and dismantling it. I’ll let you know if I stumble across anything great 🙂
Laura
All great ideas Laura. Certainly, pushing some of those more challenging yet rewarding texts into the popular realm is an extremely difficult task. I agree that it largely comes down to the responsibility of micropolitical actors and actions to create larger systemic change. This means, however, that change will occur at a snail’s pace, especially given the issues surrounding digital publishing and intellectual property.
There may also be grander methods for pushing valuable literature into the popular sphere. Canada Reads is a good example, as well as some of the critically acclaimed awards in the country (such as the Governor General’s Award). Green Grass, Running Water, for example, has met other “writerly” novels at this level. This means that we do, in Canada, have some kind of system that recognizes and makes popular books that are broadly considered ‘worthwhile’ by the academic community. Indeed, the sales of these books boom after being featured in these literary competitions. Although this does not reverse the trend entirely, perhaps these systems are a starting point for the micropolitical actors you mentioned.
In terms of countries dominated by neoliberalism, however, Canada is relatively small, and as we learned from reading Northrop Frye and other sources, it is constantly pushed to create a recognized “Canadianism.” The push for national identity my aid our country in giving prominence to more intellectually advanced texts, as those crafting the national canon hope that our country’s identity will rest on intellectualism, at least in part. Larger countries may actually have more difficulty popularizing “writerly texts,” as the body of work is so much broader and market forces so much more volatile. Lending credence to a text at the national level through something like Canada Reads may not be an option in the United States, for example. Nonetheless, our systems provide a good kicking off point for more like them in our country and in others to counter the decline in intellectualism resultant of neoliberalism.
Hey Nick,
You’re right. Canada Reads and the Governor General’s Award are excellent examples of the ways in which Canada engages with and promotes really meaningful and ‘worthwhile’ literature. I’m always really blown away by the diverse books and authors that make it onto the Canada Reads list. I truly feel that the list is representative of Canadians and their work. Though these books are already published, and deemed worthwhile, or at least profitable, by the publishing houses themselves. What about work that is rejected by publishing houses? What does it say that one institution (or several, if you send your manuscript to a bunch) gets to decide what we read?
I also agree that neoliberalism in Canada could have many worse affects and that it is not as radical as in some other countries. Thanks so much for your really engaging comments 🙂
Laura
Hello, I really enjoy this idea of writers publishing on the internet and that being enough to have big publishing companies take a look at the work. It is completely different from before, when a writer would have to send in their manuscripts and have ONE person decide if the book is good enough to publish instead of a huge following on the internet like now.
Thanks
Laryssa
Hey Team Blue!
Rimstead’s argument about how economic class affects writing style sounds very interesting to me. I agree that more exposure to literature written by oppressed populations will move us towards a more inclusive future. As you mention on your “General Focus” page “our neoliberal system […] values profits over all else” which perpetuates a lack of diversity. These publishing companies do not need diversity to sell books and will therefore, hardly branch out into publishing books about different experiences since there is more risk. I think this is where self-publishing modes (internet publishing) can be helpful. There are multiple self-publishing websites where diverse material can be shared which reduces the influence that capitalism has. I mainly see two problems with this 1) there are less advertising for the piece of literature being published which means that it gets fewer readerships and 2) there is generally no financial benefit to the author. Can you think of any more drawbacks?
My team (Team Canoe) is researching how Western and Indigenous societies transfer and transmit knowledge and I find that our team’s topics go together quite nicely. There has not been a lot of Indigenous publishing in mainstream Canadian publishing and I’m wondering why this is? Perhaps it is because a lot of Indigenous storytelling is done orally and there is a sentiment that when someone is telling you a story, it is a valued exchange between the orator and the audience. Do you think mass publishing a story would discredit or cheapen how the story is received?
Thanks!
Hi Sam 🙂
You’re absolutely right about an inclusive future is the result of dedicated exposure of diverse identities. And while self-publishing is a great option for some people, for others it’s just too expensive. Also, the influences of capitalism and neoliberalism haunt every aspect of an oppressed writer’s life. What if someone who has a story to tell and genuine talent is brought up in poverty, or attends a school with limited funding and limited opportunities to practice creative writing, has to work three jobs to support themselves and has no time to write, or can’t afford to attend university and take classes to hone their skills? And from what I have found, self-publishing makes the author way less money and attention then if they had published through a publisher. Another drawback I’ve seen is that many self-publishing companies simply publish your book, and the author is responsible for trying to make sure that it sells, This can be really stressful, and the royalties only start rolling in once you’ve sold some. There’s no such thing as an advance when you self-publish.
Your topic sounds really interesting! I’ll have to pop over to your page and have a look 🙂 Maybe some of the Indigenous communities are oppressed in the same ways I listed above, and do not produce individuals who have the time or luxury to write? Or maybe the transferring of a story from an oral version to the written results in a new type of narrative that publishers are not willing to take a risk on? I don’t think that mass publishing a story would discredit how it is received, especially if the story stays true to it’s roots, like Green Grass, Running Water. I feel like Thomas King wrote the way he wanted to, and didn’t make an exception or change his style in order to make it easier for most readers. Also, I think that giving a story to so many people may make it more powerful, or at least increase interest in more stories from a similar culture or background.
Thanks for your thoughtful questions and comments Sam 🙂
Laura
Hi Laura!
Your response… wow! I honestly didn’t even think of that and I am completely changed hahaha. I write for fun and because it’s a stress reliever and I have self-published some things online for my friends to read and for a bit of entertainment, but I’ll be honest – sometimes I don’t have time for writing and I get frustrated and give up. I can’t imagine what it would be like to attempt to make a living off of it, especially if I was trying to support myself from that means of income alone.
Great, great response – it really opened my eyes and I’m alarmed (and mildly ashamed) that I didn’t think of that further.
Thank you so much!
Hello!
I am very surprised to hear about Di Leo’s article. I had assumed that publishing physical books would be on the decline, but I never thought about the effects it would have on independent booksellers. Your bibliography for this article reminds me of the move You’ve Got Mail which is essentially about an independent bookstore being taken out by a massive book superstore. I find that these book superstores promote and encourage readers to buy a lot of what are considered “classic” books or new books that are written by a popular author. This doesn’t leave a lot of room for new writers who write “alternative” books. I am pleased that the move to electronic books is on the rise as it gives authors and writers more of a chance to publish their work, but as Laura mentioned in her reply to me, it does not offer a lot of opportunities to have big financial gains. Even then, an eBook is often cheaper than a hardcopy. Also, if these small publishing houses aren’t making a sufficient income, they might be less inclined to take on authors who are new or bring in a small financial benefit.
Hi Team Blue!
Interesting research. I was particularly drawn to Di Leo’s article. eBooks definitely allow people to self-publish easier and to get there work across while still getting paid (even if it’s a small amount). I think this is similar to how the internet allows artists like musicians to get their work across, making it easier to post a single on iTunes and such.
I wonder, then, if eBooks will help those people actually publish physical books. I believe books like the Martian started out this way, and Fifty Shades of Grey. It seems, then, that more ‘out there’ novels can still make it into ‘big-book’ stores through this method.
I still see many independent bookstores as well. While I’ve seen many close, I feel there’s a certain ‘feel’ to these types of bookstores that draws people to them. And with large bookstores like Powell’s Books in Portland, I think going to a physical places to buy books is still very appealing.
Not everyone is drawn or enjoys eBooks, so I think encouraging authors to publish is great. Once people enjoy what they are reading, the author can then gain support.
Hi Sylvia,
That’s really interesting! I never thought of it that way (about the Martian and Fifty Shades of Grey starting out as eBooks) – I guess in a sense if you self-publish online, it’s like your initial readers are your publishers, and if you get their approval, some big publishing company will take a chance on you.
I agree that independent booksellers and big chain stores will always be around. I am personally not a huge fan of eBooks (maybe because I don’t have something like a Kindle or Kobo, my laptop is pretty cumbersome) and I love the feel and the smell of old bookstores. There’s one in Penticton BC (near where I live) that has two resident pugs who greet you when you walk in the door, and drool and snort their way around while you search for a book that someone at Chapters has never heard of.
Thanks for the new insights 🙂
Laura
Hey Sylvia,
This was super interesting about the ebooks! I wondering if we have anything like that In Kelowna, BC. I am wondering if you know someone that has had something published like this. I know lots of web based publishing programs like WattPad have made it easier for young writers to be found by large publishers.
Thanks
Laryssa Legan