2003 MMLA
New Histories of Writing I:
Historiographies

Alison Rukavina
University of Alberta1

Deleuze, Guattari and Bourdieu: Challenging the National Model in Print Culture

Early methodological approaches within the field of Print Culture often represent the production and consumption of books in terms of a linear progression, and are best exemplified by Robert Darnton's concept of the communications circuit. Academics have recently critiqued these early models of book production and consumption by calling for new methods that offer a decentered and contextualised way of theorising the 'life cycle' of books, but their solutions fall short of their stated goals. The primary reason that these new methodologies fail is that they are often predicated on the study of the book trade within a national setting. While it is important to develop national histories of the book trade, academics must not neglect the fact that books and people have always circulated both within and between countries. Moreover, a number of academics in Print Culture have called for the study of the international movement of books, but the question remains how might one theorise this international movement of people and books when Print Culture, and its existing methodologies, privilege the study of the national development of the book trade?

Recently, cultural theory, particularly Pierre Bourdieu's The Field of Cultural Production (1993), has gained currency among academics for offering a contextualised methodology suitable to the study of books (Finklestein 8). While I would agree that Bourdieu offers a rigorous framework for the study of books and the book trade, his framework fails to fully encapsulate the multi-directional flow of books, people and ideas on an international scale. Bourdieu's field of literary production needs to be adapted in terms of more dynamic and decentered concepts of power and capitalism. Returning to the field of cultural theory, Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari offer, in A Thousand Plateaus (1987), a positive image of capitalism's incessant urges to produce and consume, where the networks of distribution, production and consumption are rhizomic and decentered. Consequently, I believe a reworking of Pierre Bourdieu's notion of the field of cultural production in terms of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of the rhizome offers a fluid yet rigorous methodology for exploring the book trade and the circulation of books and bodies in an international field.

Robert Darnton's often-cited and influential communication circuit posits that book history concerns the life of the book as it moves within a circuit from the author to the publisher, from the publisher to the bookseller, and so on (11). Darnton argues that "[b]ook history concerns each phase of this process and the process as a whole, in all its variations over space and time and in all its relations with other systems, economic, social, political, and cultural." However, Darnton's model is overly deterministic and rigid as the cycle assumes the direction of the flow of the book is always the same and proscribes the order and role of each agent in the cycle. John Jordan and Richard Patten argue, in Literature in the Marketplace (1995), that Darnton's model is problematic because it privileges the book as the object of study, lacks contextualization, and proscribes the movement of the book between a limited number of agents. Also, Darnton's model does not account for the variable and unpredictable nature of the book trade, and the fact that book distribution was not always a linear movement from the publisher, to the distributor, to the bookseller, and so on. Jordan and Patten believe that Print Culture requires a more inclusive and flexible methodology and, therefore, propose a decentered model where the various stages of any form of print media's "life" are interdependent and all the mediating factors are considered (11). They argue that academics need to approach "publishing history…as hypertext," which offers structure without losing the "polyvocal" nature of the discipline. While the idea of a decentered model of book history that includes all the mediating factors that influence the movement or development of texts is a laudable goal, I believe hypertext is anything but decentered.

Jordan and Patten romanticise hypertext, viewing it as revolutionary by suggesting that electronic media allows for an interplay and interconnectivity that is lacking in print. They believe that a hypertextual model avoids a "metanarrative of print history" (13), yet is a comprehensive approach that allows for the 'polyvocal' nature of the discipline without negating the multitude of "intangibles such as ideological and social formations" (12), that affect the 'life history' of a book. However, interconnective media is not a new phenomenon. For example, book clubs, literary societies or even pubs, in eighteenth-century England, where newspapers were read and discussed are also arenas of social interactions and interconnectivity.

Moreover, Jordan and Patten and others in Print Culture view hypertext as non-hierarchical. Hypertext is credited with shifting agency to the spectator/reader, but in actuality hypertext is hierarchical, because a website only allows for a predetermined number of links or connections. Hypertext is a language, or discourse, that is written and shaped by a person or persons. Therefore, hyptertext is not decentered because it's locus is the webmaster or creator. The webmaster decides the content and design of a webpage, which then structures what the specator reads, and how they then can act.

While Jordan and Patten recognise that Darnton's communications circuit is rigid, their solutions fail to account for the underlying problem that the majority of methodologies in Print Culture suffer from: work is often predicated on the study of books within a national setting. For example, Darnton's circuit was developed in relation to his work on eighteenth-century French books and the book trade in France (126). Robert Gross, in "Books Nationalism, and History," contends that the "making and unmaking of nations…forms a central theme in the history of books" (110). Similarly, major collaborative history of the book projects are currently underway in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and elsewhere. Existing models for the study of book history often assume a national focus, or infer all books follow a similar pattern of production and consumption, because the work in the field is predominantly national based and the projects similar in construction. While the development of national book histories is an important and necessary part of the advancement of Print Culture, this insular national focus precludes the creation of methods necessary to examine trans-national histories of the book and book trade.

Furthermore, Robert Gross argues that national history of the book projects in Print Culture often negate the 'actual' history of national book trades because the projects mistakenly adopt Benedict Anderson's idea of stable national boundaries (108). However, Gross insists that borders of the nation are never stable or finite; instead they are fluid and permeable. Consequently, he reminds academics that book trades were not necessarily confined within nations: "[h]eedless of borders, the printing press recast political loyalities and cultural affinities time and again, on the levels of town, region, nation, and beyond" (110). Books and people have always circulated between countries, but national history of the book projects often fail to take into account this larger international field within which book trades interacted and developed. Gross believes then that national histories of the book need to acknowledge "the permeability of national borders in the realm of culture," and accept that any national history must on some level also be a trans-national history (110). Moreover, alongside national history of the book projects, work also specifically needs to be done into the trans-national histories of the book. Repeating my earlier question, how might one then theorise the international movement of people and books, when the discipline of Print Culture privileges the study of the national development of the book trade? I believe academics must abandon nation-centric methodologies and look to cultural theory for new methods for understanding the international developments of various book trades.

Other academics, such as Peter Macdonald, have turned to cultural theory, specifically the work of Pierre Bourdieu and his concept of the field of cultural production, as an alternative approach to Darnton's insular and deterministic communications circuit. Macdonald contends, in British Literary Culture and Publishing Practice (1997), that Bourdieu challenges some of the underlying assumptions of book history (18). Macdonald believes Bourdieu offers a framework in which to reconstruct the complete history of a particular text and its entire production cycle. Also, his framework encompasses the different agents involved in the literary field, as well as, the changing social, economic, political and technological conditions that influence the literary field (19).

Bourdieu contends that any social formation is structured by way of a hierarchically organised series of fields, each defined as a structured space with its own laws. For example, the field of literary production is a dominated field within a larger field of power and it is internally structured by an opposition between two sub-fields: the field of restricted production and the field of large-scale production (38-9). The sub-field of restricted production is based on symbolic capital and thus subject to only internal demands. In contrast, the sub-field of large-scale production involves mass culture and is sustained by a large and complex cultural industry, where "its dominant principle of hierarchisation involves economic capital or 'the bottom line'" (16). This fundamental opposition is cut through with multiple additional oppositions (16). Furthermore, the cultural field is structured by the distribution of available positions and by the agents occupying them. He argues that within the fields agents participate in an integrated network of communication circuits, where the dominant and the dominated clash. Agents compete for control of the interests or resources of the field and constantly try to improve their standing or even create positions. Any change in an agent's position then "necessarily entails a change in the field's structure" (6).

In order to aid in the (re)creation of historical events or "spaces of original possibles" (31), Bourdieu develops the field of cultural production, which is contextual and neither presumes the shape nor direction of the multiple networks of communication. Consequently, he provides a rigorous methodology that offers a complex but doable approach that can be adjusted and applied to the study of the international book trade. For instance, whereas Bourdieu regarded the field of literary production as encompassing a single period and type of literature, the field of international literary production would necessitate a geographically broader view of literary production. Moreover, he describes the literary field as structured around the primary conflict between the two sub-fields regarding symbolic and cultural status and power, and a secondary conflict "within the sub-field of restricted production, between the consecrated avant-garde and the avant-garde, the established figures and the newcomers" (53). In contrast, the conflicts within a field of international literary production would, I believe, be more varied. The fundamental conflict of the international trade in books, in, for example, the late nineteenth century, would likely revolve around the varying capitalisation or economic advantage of different agents' positions within the trade. However, this is not to say that other non-economic conflicts would also not be present.

Utilising Bourdieu's framework allows for the consideration of how economic and social changes, as well as changes in technology and communication, indirectly influenced the international book trade. However, I do not presume there is a single all-encompassing international book trade, and agree with Bourdieu that fields echo specific social and historical moments. Therefore, any study utilising Bourdieu's framework would examine a particular period and strand of the international trade in books.

While I agree with Macdonald that Bourdieu offers a more contextualised framework within which to study the 'life cycle' of a book, or the history of the book trade, Bourdieu's concept of the field of literary production is not without problems. His model is based on the assumption that the relationships between the cultural intermediaries within the field of cultural production are between the dominant and dominated. Bourdieu's framework needs to be adapted to a model that is not hierarchical, since the different actors in the field of international literary production do not necessarily interact in terms of just the dominated and dominant -there is a more complex interaction going on. In order to capture the expansive dynamics of the globalscape of the international book trade, I believe his methodology needs to be modified.

Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari offer, in A Thousand Plateaus, one way of theorizing capitalist relations that challenge binary power dynamics. Deleuze and Guattari envision a post-Marxist and post-modern conception of 'productive desire,' a positive image of capitalism's repetitive and constant urges to produce and consume. They argue that we are all machines, continually connecting and reconnecting in processes of production and consumption (4). Machines are assemblages, or multiplicities, which stand in for subject and object. Deleuze and Guattari believe humans, cars, computers, lamps and books are all machines. For example, "A book has neither object nor subject; it is made of variously formed matters, and very different dates and speeds" (3). An assemblage, such as "a book has only itself, in connection with other assemblages and in relation to other bodies without organs" (4), where the phrase "bodies without organs" describes any organising structures such as government or school. These structuring apparatus bind machines, but because machines are beset by productive desire, they also constantly produce and consume in a rhizomic manner that, to a certain degree, negates the power of these organising structures. Deleuze and Guattari define a rhizome as a map or tracing that ceaselessly establishes connections: a rhizome is a multiplicity of connections and interfaces between machines and bodies without organs that horizontally spreads out (7). The rhizome is then a kind of tuber in that it ramifies and diversifies in often unpredictable and uncontrollable ways. In contrast to a closed circuit, the rhizome can develop in any multitude of directions. Moreover, the rhizome is made up of other rhizomes, in which machines interface and cross-fertilisation takes place.

Deleuze and Guattari advance a way of conceptualising the nonlinear flow of circulating commodities and bodies that made up the international book trade. A closed model, or circuit, of book production and consumption, like Robert Darnton's, does not encapsulate the fluidity and unpredictability of the transmission and dissemination of books on an international scale. By thinking of the circulation of books in terms of a rhizome, it allows the archival material to spread out in a manner that is not proscribed by a strict or linear communications circuit. The struggles within the field are unpredictable and the position-takings truly endless. Anyone can theoretically take or adapt any other position within the field, not counting the indirect influence of the other fields on those positions. Moreover, a rhizomic field of international literary production does not just encompass the struggle between two primary groups, but the conflict between multiple parties and agents, all with their own political agendas. Bourdieu argues that there is a primary conflict between those who have cultural or symbolic status and those who want that status within the literary field. In an international literary field of production I believe that the conflicts are multiple: there are conflicts regarding different forms of economic capital, symbolic capital and cultural capital. Adapting Deleuze and Guattari's rhizome to Bourdieu's concept of the field of literary production allows for the greater interplay within the field between a multiplicity of assemblages/actors who are jockeying for varying positions.

Deleuze and Guattari argue that assemblages repeatedly engage, and in doing so cross-fertilize one another, which then leads to further cross-fertilizations with each new interface in multiplying, rupturing or newly establishing rhizomes (9). They argue that books deterritorialize the world and the world reterritorializes books as they move through networks: "from sign to sign, a movement from one territory to another, a circulation assuring a certain speed of deterritorialization" (126). Deterritorialization and reterritorialization refer to the use of an idea, part or image of a machine or assemblage by another assemblage. How machines are constantly changing assemblages, or, in other words, how books, as they move from person to person or country to country, develop new readings and new audiences, or in turn influence new audiences or lead to new ideas. The rhizome is a growth of infinite actions and reactions, where assemblages may borrow or use a "part" of another assemblage in a way potentially unknown to the original assemblage. Deleuze and Guattari describe cultural, social and economic cross-fertilization on a global scale. For example, an epic tale might be picked up and reterritorialized by each community it comes into contact with, taking on new meanings with each community (126). The concepts of deterritorializing and reterritorializing are useful signifiers to describe the multi-directional interconnections and cultural, social and economic cross-fertilisations between the networks of communication, within the international field of literary production.

In conclusion, the reworking of Bourdieu's field of literary production in terms of Deleuze and Guattari's nonlinear rhizomic networks allows one to avoid hierarchical, national or linear models of the book trade. My research into the late-nineteenth century international book trade reveals that, by and large, book trades during this period were not insular national practices, but part of a broader international trade. Consequently, while Bourdieu offers a contextualised framework for my research, Deleuze and Guattari provide a vocabulary for clarifying the power dynamics within this international book trade, and also propose a theory of circulating commodities and assemblages that compliments the unpredictable flow of books and people on the international stage. However, attempting to mesh the cultural theory of Deleuze and Guattari, and Bourdieu is not easy. Left unsaid are the discordant views of each regarding the question of what is history. Reconciling this and other potentially conflicting points is still necessary, but hopefully this paper has tentatively indicated a possible approach to conceptualising the international trade in books that accepts national boundaries as unfixed borders that allowed for the cross-fertilization between the various national book trades.

Works Cited

Bourdieu, Pierre. The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature. New York: Columbia UP, 1993.

Darnton, Robert. The Kiss of Lamourette: Reflections in Cultural History. New York: Norton, 1990.

Deluze, Gilles and Felix Guttari. A Thousand Plateaus. Trans. Brian Massami. Minneapolis: U of Minneapolis P, 1987.

Finkelstein, David, and Alistair McCleery. The Book History Reader. London: Routledge, 2002.

Jordan, John O., and Robert L. Patten, eds. Literature in the Marketplace: Nineteenth-Century British Publishing and Reading Practices. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995.

McDonald, Peter. British Literary Culture and Publishing Practice 1880-1914. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997.

Winship, Michael. American literary publishing in the mid-nineteenth century: the business of Ticknor and Fields. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995.

Notes

1 English Department, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada T6G 2H4. Email: rukavina@ualberta.ca. Funding for this presentation was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. This paper is a working draft so please do not cite without the author's permission.