Economy and Epistemology of Gossip in 19th- and early 20th-Century US-American Literature and Culture

19世纪和20世纪初美国文学和文化中的八卦经济学和认识论

• 批准号: 401052633
• 负责人: Dr. Katrin Horn
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Amerikastudien/ Anglophone Literaturen und Kulturen
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2017-12-31 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/401052633?language=en
• 关键词: Economy; Epistemology; Gossip; 19th; early

Late 19th and early 20th century US-American culture is characterized by crucial changes in the conception of privacy, publicity, speculation, and risk, which still influence our understanding of these terms today. This literary and cultural studies research project asserts that a hitherto neglected form of knowledge production and circulation, namely gossip, provides an insightful lens through which to address these issues. Analyzing realist fiction as well as commercial publications and private individuals’ life writing, it therefore seeks to answer the questions of what and how gossip knows, and what this knowledge is worth. Its focus on women adds crucial insights to existing scholarship by looking at individuals who – in contrast to those usually assumed in scholarly and contemporary discussions of the above-mentioned transformations – inhabit the supposedly secluded private sphere and whose legal status is often precarious. The project claims that as women are unable (or at least limited in their ability) to participate in the marketplace, their private lives become themselves ‘economic’ and many women become speculators in the stock of their own marriageability and other forms of social capital. In this constellation, gossip – as the seed of rumor and scandal, and as a source of otherwise unavailable or unshareable knowledge – emerges as a prime commodity. This project thus enhances our understanding of gossip as an article of trade in the late 19th century beyond its relevance for emerging yellow press magazines by underscoring gossip’s use as social speculation with financial stakes. It further specifies gossip’s epistemological status and potential for knowledge dissemination and connects these insights to realist fiction’s narratological strategies for dealing with new cultural contexts and aesthetic demands. Building on and complimenting the analysis of gossip’s economy and epistemology in literature, the study of gossip’s traces in primary material at archives in the US (e.g. Library of Congress, New York Public Library) opens new perspectives on women’s (individual and communal, secret and shared) strategies in dealing with socio-cultural forces of financial speculation, risk management, and the re-evaluation of privacy. Furthermore, this research illustrates the circulation of gossip as a practice with which to approach uncertainty and uncertain knowledge within the domestic sphere. It therefore investigates gossip’s value as a historical knowledge that differs from what Peter Burke calls the ‘explicit,’ ‘pure,’ and ‘universal’ knowledge of sciences and institutions. Through this shift to a source of knowledge considered illegitimate, biased, or partial, this inquiry into turn-of-the-century US-American literature and culture complicates the assumed dichotomies between public and private / domestic and economic, which 'official' documents insist on, and advances our understanding of narrative strategies in realist fiction.

世纪末和20世纪初，美国文化的特点是隐私、公开、投机和风险的概念发生了重大变化，这些变化仍然影响着我们今天对这些术语的理解。这个文学和文化研究的研究项目断言，一个迄今为止被忽视的知识生产和流通形式，即八卦，提供了一个有见地的透镜，通过它来解决这些问题。分析现实主义小说以及商业出版物和私人生活写作，因此，它试图回答的问题是什么和如何八卦知道，以及这种知识是值得的。它对妇女的关注为现有的学术研究增添了重要的见解，因为它关注的是那些居住在据称与世隔绝的私人领域、其法律的地位往往不稳定的个人，而这些人与学术界和当代关于上述变革的讨论中通常假设的人不同。该项目声称，由于妇女无法（或至少能力有限）参与市场，她们的私人生活本身就成为“经济”，许多妇女成为自己婚龄和其他形式社会资本的投机者。在这个星座中，八卦--作为谣言和丑闻的种子，作为否则无法获得或无法分享的知识的来源--成为一种主要商品。因此，这个项目加强了我们对八卦作为世纪后期的商业文章的理解，超越了它与新兴的黄色新闻杂志的相关性，强调八卦作为社会投机与金融风险的使用。它进一步明确了八卦的认识论地位和知识传播的潜力，并将这些见解与现实主义小说应对新的文化语境和审美需求的叙事策略联系起来。在对文学中的八卦经济和认识论分析的基础上，对美国档案馆（如国会图书馆、纽约公共图书馆）原始材料中八卦痕迹的研究为妇女（个人和社区、秘密和共享）应对金融投机、风险管理和重新评估隐私的社会文化力量的战略开辟了新的视角。此外，这项研究说明了八卦的流通作为一种做法，以接近不确定性和不确定的知识在国内范围内。因此，它调查八卦的价值，作为一个历史知识，不同于彼得伯克所谓的“明确的”，“纯粹的”和“普遍的”科学和机构的知识。通过这种转移到被认为是非法的，有偏见的，或部分的知识来源，本世纪之交的美国文学和文化的调查复杂的公共和私人/国内和经济，“官方”文件坚持之间的二分法，并推进我们的理解在现实主义小说的叙事策略。