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Conference : The contradictions of the globalisation of the publishing industry

Call for papers

Since World War II, the liberalisation of economic exchanges among nation-states has favoured the emergence of a worldwide book market. Because of the extension of the GATT agreement to the trade of services and thus of cultural goods during the Uruguay Round cycle, in the last twenty years, this market has become more and more unified. This process has undeniably contributed to the intensification of international cultural exchanges. Nevertheless, economic analysis is not enough to account for these changes. In fact, the cultural goods market has its own hierarchy criteria and its own economy. As instruments for the transmission of knowledge and components of national heritages, cultural goods have specific characteristics as regards the modality of their production, circulation and appropriation. Moreover, these exchanges take place under conditions of unequal relations between nation-states at the political, economic and/or cultural levels, relations that need to be analysed in order to understand the logics at stake in these exchanges. Unlike fields that seem immediately international (such as dance, music and, to a certain extent, cinema), the circulation of written texts faces a linguistic barrier; exchanges must often occur through translation. Beyond the economic cost that the transfer implies in this case, translation requires linguistic and cultural skills, the supply and degree of specialisation of which depend on the socio-historical context. It implies practices and norms that are more or less codified according to culture. All these variables justify sociological, historical or textual approaches.

This conference aims to study the effects of the unification of the book market, at several levels. We will question the different strategies of adjustment or, possibly on the contrary, the inertia of the production institutions (publishers, book-shops) and of the agents of intermediation in front of these new constraints. The institutions and specific agents of this international market (book fairs, literary agents, etc.) will be looked at with particular attention. Examining the comparative evolution of the flows of translated books in the different fields should allow evaluating the degree and rhythm of intensification of book exchanges. We will focus more closely on the fields of literature and social and human sciences, but contributions making comparisons with other fields such as children literature are welcome. Besides these quantitative analyses, we will also deal with the qualitative transformations of the different types of products in circulation. In particular, we will question the hypotheses of standardization of the products and that of the growing importance of commercial considerations in the frame of the book market unification. The process of unification of the book market creates a double tension needing further analysis between diversification and standardization of cultural products on the one hand, and universalisation and affirmation of identity specificities, in the process of exportation as well as that of importation and reception, on the other.

These questions require employing the approaches of several disciplines: sociology, economics, communication sciences, history, and literary studies. Therefore, this conference invites specialists in all these fields. We will favour empirical studies dealing with the contemporary period. However, long term analyses likely to shed light on recent evolutions will also be considered.

Themes:

- The institutions and actors of the worldwide book market: book fairs, intermediation agents, consecrating institutions, etc.

- The international circulation of books: economic and political constraints, effects of the market unification, conditions and modalities of importation/exportation of books (evolution of translation flows, public policies, editorial policies, etc.)

- The agents of exportation/importation: translation institutes, translators, specialists, etc.

- Translation practices.

- Reception processes.

Date of the conference: 23rd-25th of March 2006

Languages of the conference: French and English

Deadline for papers proposals: 15th of September 2005

The proposals (half-page to a page) are to be sent to the coordinator of the conference: Anaïs Bokobza: anais.bokobza 'at' free.fr

This conference is organised in the framework of the European network ESSE “For a European Social Sciences Space” (program “Integrating and strengthening the European Research Area” of the European Commission, 2003-2006). It also benefits from the support of the Ministry for Research through two ACI (program “Techniques, terrain, théorie”): one on the theme “Translation as a vector of international cultural exchanges: circulation of literary and social sciences books and evolution of the role of France on the worldwide publishing market from 1980 to 2004”, conducted by the Centre de Sociologie Européenne, in partnership with the centre Culture et sociétés urbaines, the Centre de recherché interdisciplinaire sur l’Allemagne and the Institut d’histoire moderne et contemporaine; the other one deals with “mutations of cultural industries”, conducted by MSH Paris-Nord, gathers the network of MSH (MSH-Paris, MSH-Grenoble, MSH-Bordeaux).

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