Literary prizes in German-speaking countries since 1990: functions and effects

该项目旨在全面分析自1990年以来德语文化区的文学奖现象，考察其对文学领域、文化政策和出版界的作用和影响。就文学领域而言，奖项被认为有助于其多样化。文化政策使用奖品来支持社会文化价值观，如理解、和平或包容。对于出版商来说，获奖意味着作家的额外声誉和媒体对新细分市场的关注。这些功能相辅相成，并使奖品在当前观察到的社会审美转向中发挥核心作用(雷克维茨)。在公认的观点中，奖项有助于确定流派和作者的等级(布迪厄)。因此，奖项的增加(2016年超过900个)将意味着质量的通货膨胀损失。然而，该项目旨在探索新的奖项如何承认边缘地区是自主文学判断的对象，并为提升新的流派和作品做出贡献。其他奖项赋予文学以社会文化价值，并支持将文学视为公共领域的一部分。尽管对不同奖项进行了研究，但尚未对奖项及其影响进行全面调查。对于定量研究，该项目组织了一个数据库，以补充和更正已有的数据。它将通过杜伊斯堡-埃森大学的可持续维护供后续研究使用。案例研究探讨了新流派的品牌，对奖项的地区投资与经济激励之间的联系，奖项对出版商世界的影响，以及出版商试图通过市场战略和游说影响奖项的颁发。

The project intends a comprehensive analysis of the phenomenon of literary prizes in the German speaking cultural area since 1990 examining its functions for and effects on the literary field, cultural policies, and the publishing world. As far as the literary field is concerned, it is assumed that prizes contribute to its diversification. Cultural policies use prizes in support of socio-cultural values such as understanding, peace, or inclusion. As for publishers, prizes mean additional reputation for authors and media attention to new market segments. The functions reinforce each other and give prizes a central role in the currently observed aesthetic turn of society (Reckwitz). In a received view prizes contribute to determining the hierarchy of genres and authors (Bourdieu). Hence the increase of prizes (more than 900 in 2016) would signify an inflationary loss of quality. The project, however, aims at exploring how new prizes acknowledge marginal areas as objects of autonomous literary judgment and contribute to ennoble new genres and works. Other prizes charge literature with socio-cultural values and support to perceive literature as part of the public sphere. Despite studies on distinctive prizes a full investigation of prizes and their impact is yet to be conducted. For quantitative research the project organizes a database that completes and corrects already existing data. It will be accessible for subsequent research through sustainable maintenance at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Case studies explore the branding of new genres, the connections between regional investments in prizes and economic incentives, the impact of prizes on the publishers' world as well as the publishers' attempts to influence the awarding of prizes by market strategies and lobbying.