Guest Editors: Jan Váňa and Hernán Maltz (Institute of Czech literature of the Czech Academy of Sciences)

This proposal builds on our long-term effort to facilitate dialogue between literary theoretical and sociologically oriented approaches in examining the complex relationship between the social and the literary. Since the inception of the social sciences, sociology and literary studies have profoundly influenced one another (Lepenies, 1988). However, due to institutional and disciplinary divides, sociology has historically placed greater emphasis on the ‘social’ aspects of literary communication. We can observe this trend even today. Contemporary sociology of literature continues to emphasize literary production, often relegating literary works to the status of passive objects shaped by social interactions and institutions—with Pierre Bourdieu’s work serving as a prominent example. Even sociologists who acknowledge the intrinsic value of literature frequently treat literary texts as resources to be translated into sociological discourse.

At the Literature & Society Laboratory we advocate for both sociologists and literary scholars to consider extra-textual and intra-textual elements to gain a more comprehensive and enriching understanding of social-literary interaction. Successive synthetic accounts show that the sociology of literature remains a fragmented and dispersed field, offering a diverse array of approaches, with Bourdieusian field theory being just one among many (see Ferguson et al., 1988; English, 2010; Glinoer, 2019; Casas, 2020). We argue that the existing epistemological asymmetry in this area of study can be addressed through a dialogue with those whose professional calling is to understand literature—with literary theorists and critics. Therefore, the proposed issue aims to bring together sociologists, cultural scholars, literary theorists, historians, and critics to explore various facets of the literary-social link, providing rich and compelling analyses through their collaborative effort.

We welcome analyses that engage with texts and contexts, fictions and discourses, theories and practices, themes and motifs, traditions and novelties, spaces and trajectories, and more. We are particularly interested in submissions that critically examine the category of ‘sociology of literature’ itself and explore its connections with various fields of knowledge, especially in areas where sociology and literary studies intersect or compete. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Case studies examining the creation and/or impact of literary works across different cultural and historical contexts.
• Research on literary production (such as authorship, publishing institutions, and editorial practices), readership (including reader interviews, statistical surveys, and discourse analyses of reception), and literary fields that combine sociological perspective with close reading of relevant literary texts.
• Methodological contributions that propose new ways of conceptualizing the relationship between literature and society or that draw on the analysis of specific literary works within their social contexts.
• Theoretical contributions that discuss models, paradigms, and schools of thought, or propose new theoretical approaches.
• Intellectual history exploring how different schools and paradigms have approached—and are approaching—the study of the literature-society relationship, and how these approaches have evolved over time.

Instructions for authors

Please send a working title and an abstract of 250–500 words, outlining your central research question, theoretical framework, and general argument or expected findings to casopis@soc.cas.cz, vana@ucl.cas.cz, and maltz@ucl.cas.cz.

Authors whose abstracts are accepted will be invited to submit full papers, which will undergo a fully anonymized peer review process. Please note that an invitation to submit a full paper does not guarantee publication in the issue, as acceptance is subject to the outcome of the peer review process.

Deadline for submission of abstracts: 31 March 2025

Decisions on abstracts communicated to accepted authors: Late April 2025

Submission of full papers: 31 October 2025

For any additional information or questions regarding the issue, please contact the guest editors vana@ucl.cas.cz and maltz@ucl.cas.cz.