Reading the Social in American Studies offers a unique exploration of the advantages and benefits in using sociological terms and concepts in American literary and cultural studies and, conversely, in using literature—understood broadly—to uncover a microlevel of the social.

Chapter 1: Reading the Social: An Introduction.- Chapter 2: Recognition, Literature, and their Social Dependence: An Inquiry into the Work of Bourdieu and Elias. Chapter 3: ‘Habit’ and the Concept of Character in American Literary Realism and Pragmatist Thought: The Example of William Dean Howells and the James Bothers.- Chapter 4: Pushing the ‘Envelope of Circumstances’: Reading the Social with Henry James and Pierre Bourdieu.- Chapter 5: Systemic Racism: Reading Ralph Ellison with Bourdieu’s Theory of Power.- Chapter 6: “On the Margins of One Group and Three Countries”: Exile, Belonging, and the Sociological Imagination in Reinhard Bendix’s From Berlin to Berkeley.- Chapter: 7. J.D. Vance, Cultural Alien: on Upward Mobility.- Chapter 8: Literariness and the Double Bind of Stigma.- Chapter 9: Civilization and Its Discontents: Reading Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club with Norbert.- Chapter 10: Reading Populism with Bourdieuand Elias.- Chapter 11: Reading the Social in Photography: Emotional Practices, Power Relations, and Iconography.

Reading the Social in American Studies offers a unique exploration of the advantages and benefits in using sociological terms and concepts in American literary and cultural studies and, conversely, in using literature—understood broadly—to uncover a microlevel of the social. Its temporal scope ranges from the early 19th to the 21st century, providing a historical dimension that is otherwise often missing from studies on the conjunction of literature and sociology. The contributors’ approaches include genre reflections as well as close readings, theoretical discussions of crucial sociological terms, and literary observations backed up by empirical sociological studies. The book will familiarize international readers with ideas on the social from both sides of the Atlantic, including scholarship of such figures as John Dewey, Georg Simmel, Norbert Elias, and Pierre Bourdieu.Astrid Franke is Professor for American Literature and Culture at Tübingen University, Germany.Katja Sarkowsky is Professor of American Studies and Chair of American Studies at Augsburg University, Germany.Stefanie Mueller is a lecturer at the Institute of English and American Studies, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany. 

Provides a comprehensive methodological and historical dimension that is otherwise often missing from studies on the conjunction of literature and sociology Highlights the mechanisms of the social as uncovered by literature Speaks to the interest in American Studies of bringing together literature and sociology