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Gender and the Accumulation of Prestige in Australian Book Publishing

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Gender and the Accumulation of Prestige in Australian Book Publishing Gender and the Accumulation of Prestige in Australian Book Publishing Alexandra Dane A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy November 2018 ABSTRACT This thesis explores the relationship between gender and the ‘agents of consecration’ that recognise and confer prestige in Australian book publishing. Small-scale studies have identified underrepresentation of women authors in the book review pages of the most prolific literary publications, on the winners list of the major literary prizes, on the literary festival stage, and within ‘classroom canons’. Yet there is little understanding of how the relationship between gender and these consecratory agents has evolved over time, or how agents of consecration work together in the field of cultural production to establish authors’ reputations and contribute to their accumulated symbolic capital and power in the field. Drawing on 50 years of data from Australian book reviews, prizes, literary festivals and high school reading lists, this study uses an adapted Bourdieusian framework to interrogate the values and perceptions of gender and literary worth that pervade the Australian field. It finds that while the representation of women within consecratory institutions has increased since the mid-1960s, in a number of sectors progress toward parity with male authors has plateaued. Moreover, it appears these agents – prescribed text lists, book reviews, literary festivals and literary prizes – have an increasingly overlapping relationship; today there is greater interaction between agents of consecrations than ever before. Therefore, each agent of consecration is increasingly powerful, and the underrepresentation of particular groups can have profound, field-wide effects. 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I doubt that anyone who has undertaken a PhD thesis would argue that it is a solitary and individual process. While at times it can feel quite lonely and isolating, the process of reading, researching and writing is entirely collaborative. My name may grace the front page of this thesis, but I did not complete this research alone. First and foremost, I must thank my supervisors Professor Jock Given and Associate Professor Rowan Wilken. You have shown me how to ask the right questions, when to push myself harder and why it is that I am doing this. Your guidance has given me the confidence to finish this project; your exacting standards have ensured that I couldn’t be prouder of the outcome. I have loved almost every minute of the past three years, in large part because of your supervision. To Sandy Gifford, Esther Milne and Anthony McCosker, thank you for your detailed and thoughtful feedback, and for encouraging me through every milestone. Your enthusiasm for this project was a constant source of light that I could draw upon in the more challenging times. I must also take this opportunity to thank another group of researchers who have, in both formal and informal ways, guided me through this project: Sybil Nolan, Beth Driscoll, Millicent Weber, Rochelle Lade, Claire Parnell and LJ Maher. I am so lucky to have found a community of researchers with whom I can share and develop ideas, write articles and send drafts. Being surrounded by the sharpest minds only helps to make mine sharper. And for that, I am eternally grateful. I wish to make special mention of Indigo Holcombe-James. The contribution that Indigo has made to this piece of work is difficult to define. And while she has read countless drafts of this thesis, milestone reports and conference papers, this 3 generous and time-consuming work does not adequately describe her contribution. Knowing that someone is right beside you, someone who understands exactly how much of yourself that this process requires, is the reason that I have made it to the end in one piece. And finally to my family – Dad, Edwina, Charlie, Ed, Laura, Ashie, Danielle, Lewis and Will. You never doubted me. Not once. And while your love and your support is often expressed in different ways, I never questioned its existence. Not once. This work not mine. It is ours. The professional copyediting services of Mel Campbell were engaged in the final stages of this research. Ms Campbell copyedited the thesis for clarity and consistency. 4 DECLARATION This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award to the candidate of any other degree or diploma. To the best of the candidate’s knowledge, this thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the text of the examinable outcome. Alexandra Dane 5 ABSTRACT 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 3 DECLARATION 5 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES 9 Tables 9 Figures 10 INTRODUCTION 15 ‘To be Australian, a woman and a writer’ 16 Similar studies 18 Chapter outline 20 CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW 24 Anglophone book publishing: an ever-evolving space 25 50 years of publishing in Australia 28 The 1960s and 1970s 28 The 1980s and 1990s 32 2000-2015 36 Building literary reputations in the contemporary Australian field 41 Theoretical framework 46 The field of cultural production 48 Symbolic capital 50 The habitus 51 Bourdieu and gender 53 Bourdieu and the contemporary Australian publishing field 56 Agents of consecration and cultural intermediaries 57 Prestige in the literary field 62 CHAPTER TWO: METHODS 65 English prescribed text lists, 1965-2015 67 Book reviews 67 Literary festivals 68 Literary prizes 68 BookScan data 69 Austlit data 69 Semi-structured interviews 70 Situating myself in this study 71 CHAPTER THREE: PRESCRIBED TEXT LISTS 73 Methods 77 Results 81 Texts 82 Texts written by women 86 A canon of texts 89 The influence of prize-winning titles on the text lists 94 A canon of authors 95 The relationship between prescribed text lists and bestseller lists 103 6 Conclusions 104 CHAPTER FOUR: BOOK REVIEWS 107 Book reviewing in Australia 114 Methods 116 Results 117 Reviews of fiction titles 124 Reviews of non-fiction titles 127 Reviews of poetry titles 129 The most reviewed authors 130 Who reviews what? 134 The relationship between book reviews and sales performance 138 What the literary editors and book reviewers say 141 Conclusions 145 CHAPTER FIVE: LITERARY FESTIVALS 148 Methods 153 Results 154 Keynotes 156 In conversation 161 Panel discussions 164 The relationship between literary festivals and sales performance 171 Conclusions 172 CHAPTER SIX: LITERARY PRIZES 175 Gender and literary prizes 183 Judging literary quality 187 Titles in the running 188 Method 193 Results 195 Prize-winning authors 195 Changes over time 199 Winners of multiple prizes 203 Shortlisted authors 205 Prize judges 210 The relationship between literary prizes and sales performance 215 Conclusions 216 CHAPTER SEVEN: INTERACTION BETWEEN AGENTS OF CONSECRATION 221 A model for understanding the movement of symbolic capital around the Australian literary field 223 The most consecrated authors 227 How the agents of consecration intersect across the literary field 230 Changes over time 231 Assessing the influence of each agent of consecration 235 The influence of symbolic capital beyond the field of cultural production 241 The relationship between gender and accumulated symbolic capital 244 Changes over time 245 A closer look: 10 symbolically wealthy authors 247 Bringing about meaningful change 252 7 CONCLUSION 258 REFERENCES 263 APPENDIX I 278 List of interview participants 278 APPENDIX II 280 Human Ethics Approval and Compliance 280 8 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Tables TABLE 1: Average number of prescribed texts per year, per decade TABLE 2: Gender breakdown of canonical titles on text lists, per decade published TABLE 3: Canonical texts written by women prior to 1900 TABLE 4: Most prescribed authors per decade TABLE 5: Years with no women poets reviewed and no women poetry reviewers TABLE 6: Representation of First Nations authors in book reviews TABLE 7: Proportion of reviewed titles written by First Nations women as a proportion of all women reviewed TABLE 8: Years when no titles by First Nations authors reviewed TABLE 9: Most reviewed authors per publication, per decade TABLE 10: Top selling titles reviewed in ABR, The Age and The Australian TABLE 11: Adelaide Writers’ Week panel discussion topics TABLE 12: Melbourne Writers’ Festival panel discussion topics TABLE 13: All-First Nations author panel discussion topics TABLE 14: Miles Franklin Literary Award prize money, 1965-2015 TABLE 15: Authors who have won multiple literary prizes TABLE 16: Proportion of prize-winning authors to multiple prize-winning authors, per gender TABLE 17: Proportion of shortlists versus proportion of prizes, per gender TABLE 18: First Nations prize-winning authors TABLE 19: First Nations shortlisted authors TABLE 20: Bestselling and prize-winning/shortlisted titles across multiple years TABLE 21: Authors who engage with all four agents of consecration, 1965-2015 TABLE 22: Proportion of authors who interact with two agents of consecration TABLE 23: Change of agent interaction over time TABLE 24: Average number of authors engaging with each agent of consecration, per decade TABLE 25: Top-10 reviewed authors, 1965-2015 TABLE 26: Top-10 festival appearances, 1966-2015 TABLE 27: Top-10 prize shortlists, 1965-2015 TABLE 28: Top-10 prescribed authors, 1965-2015 TABLE 29: Authors with high symbolic and economic capital, 2003-2015 TABLE 30: Authors who interact with multiple agents of consecration TABLE 31: Author who interact with all four agents of consecration – prescribed text, book reviews, literary festivals and literary
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