Cultural Capital Book Reviews

Cultural Capital by John Guillory Book Summary

“[A] landmark work . . . which showed how literary evaluation draws authority from the institutions—principally universities—within which it is practiced.” —The New Yorker

Winner of the René Wellek Prize of the American Comparative Literature Association

John Guillory challenges the most fundamental premises of the canon debate by resituating the problem of canon formation in an entirely new theoretical framework. The result is a book that promises to recast not only the debate about the literary curriculum but also the controversy over “multiculturalism” and the current “crisis of the humanities.” Employing concepts drawn from Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology, Guillory argues that canon formation must be understood less as a question of the representation of social groups than as a question of the distribution of “cultural capital” in the schools, which regulate access to literacy, to the practices of reading and writing.

“A brilliant analysis of a debate that has come to define our cultural moment. Ceding nothing to sentiment, Guillory has written an intellectually severe and uncompromising study that will leave few of our comfortable commonplaces quite intact. This is, in short, a landmark work; one that will outrage and inform in equal measure.” —Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

“This is the very best account I’ve read of how and why literary canons are formed and what can be gained from an understanding of the process of formation. Guillory’s analysis is highly sophisticated, his learning prodigious, and his judgment excellent. Cultural Capital is a major study in every way and will be discussed for years to come.” —Marjorie Perloff

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Cultural Capital (John Guillory) Book Reviews 2024

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