Sociology of literature : text, history, world (Jameson, Bourdieu, Moretti, Tanpinar)

In the thesis, we argue that there is a significant necessity to make a sociology of literature in the wake of recent developments in sociology and neighboring fields. In the first section of the thesis, we discuss the past of literary sociology (as it has been known) in its constitutive problematiques of historicism, romanticism and nationalism, then inquire why literary sociology has been displaced in post-1980 period in the academia and other emergent fields (cultural studies, postcolnial theory) have been raised into the fore of sociological literary studies. We argue that the historicist, romanticist and generally positivist heritage of sociology of literature (from Madame de Stael to Marx) became a burden in the baggage of the field and have had to dissapear in the millieu of postmodernist debates around the problems of representation/interpretation/subjectivity. In the transitional chapter of our thesis, we pursue a critique of old-fashioned sociology of literature in a post-positivist mode and insist on the need of a sociological literary studies in the wake of postmodernist critique. In the second section of the thesis, we offer a three-fold scheme of research program for sociological literary studies. In following the critical propostions of Fernand Braudel in his article `Social Sciences in the Longue Durée?, we argue that we should do our researches on the literary production in the short-term, the conjectural and the long-term. We place the Marxist hermeneutics of Fredric Jameson in the short-term, cultural sociology of Pierre Bourdieu in the conjectural and literary world-system theroy of Franco Moretti in the longterm of our research scheme. We delineate the central concepts of these theorists (historicity for Jameson, literary field/habitus/doxa for Bordieu and literary world-system or worldliterature for Moretti) and claim that these concepts provide us a minimal toolbox to do sociological literary studies in theoritical basis. In the last section of the thesis, we test our program of sociological literary studies in the significant case of Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar?s practice of literary criticism and litarary History. We contend that we need a critique of Tanpınar?s historicist hermeneutics, uncritical concept of national literature and eurocentrist fiction of literature. In the conclusion, we summarize our critical points and highlight the possible pathways in the future for a sociologically-minded studies of literature in Turkey. Keywords: Sociology of literature, historicism, romanticism, positivism, postmodernity, Jameson, Bourdieu, Moretti, Marxist hermeneutics, Literary field/habitus/doxa, Literary world-system