{"id":289,"date":"2017-10-05T08:59:15","date_gmt":"2017-10-05T14:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dh.danewhitaker.com\/?p=26"},"modified":"2017-10-05T08:59:15","modified_gmt":"2017-10-05T14:59:15","slug":"what-happens-after-1900","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briancroxall.net\/f17dh\/student-posts\/what-happens-after-1900\/","title":{"rendered":"What Happens After 1900?"},"content":{"rendered":"

So I had one haunting question as I read Franco Moretti\u2019s essay, which proposes \u201ca transformation in the study of literature\u2026a shift from the close reading of individual texts to the construction of abstract models.\u201d He makes a compelling case for the fusion of literary studies with data visualization, and for what it\u2019s worth, I agree with the main thrust of his argument. Data and literature should collide. In the next few decades, I think they will become increasingly intertwined. Moretti\u2019s analysis of mostly British novels over 150 years shows that genres have a lifetime of 25-30 years, one generation. It\u2019s intriguing, but he drops the thread just when the story starts to get interesting. When readership becomes so widespread and authors so diverse that no single genre can dominate the market, the categories begin to splinter into dozens, hundreds.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s my question: what comes next? Moretti\u2019s only nod to the century since 1900 (his article dates to 2003) is to graph the rise of the novel in Nigeria. Maybe he didn\u2019t have access to the same wealth of data for recent years, but I still believe what\u2019s missing is critical.<\/p>\n

Genres today would be unrecognizable to audiences of the 19th century. What of horror, thrillers, paranormal romance, urban fantasy, space opera, military science fiction, dystopia? I\u2019m talking about \u201clowbrow\u201d popular genres, of course, but so is Moretti. It seems rational to conclude that more books published in a given genre suggest more readers of that genre, which is by definition popularity.<\/p>\n

I did a little informal research. A quick perusal of Amazon\u2019s rankings<\/a> in fiction shows a horror, a historical fiction, and an epic fantasy top the \u201cMost Read\u201d list, while the same horror, another horror, and a thriller reign on the \u201cMost Sold\u201d list. The equivalent New York Times bestsellers right now (including print and e-books) are a crime novel, a personal triumph novel\u2014that may not qualify as a genre, but I\u2019m not sure how else to describe it\u2014and a romantic thriller. Who\u2019s tracking these trends? As far as I know, certain strands of fantasy, sci-fi, romance, and horror have outlasted a single generation, and I doubt they\u2019re going to disappear soon. Does this break Moretti\u2019s pattern?<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/p>\n

Moretti, Franco. “Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for Literary History 1.” New Left Review 24, Nov-Dec 2003.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Image: Amazon.com Charts. Screenshot taken 5 October 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I had one haunting question as I read Franco Moretti’s essay, which proposes “a transformation in the study of literature…a shift from the close reading of individual texts to the construction of abstract models.” He makes a compelling case for the fusion of literary studies with data visualization, and for what it’s worth, I …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-student-posts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9aQyB-4F","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancroxall.net\/f17dh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancroxall.net\/f17dh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancroxall.net\/f17dh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancroxall.net\/f17dh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancroxall.net\/f17dh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/briancroxall.net\/f17dh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1256,"href":"https:\/\/briancroxall.net\/f17dh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions\/1256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancroxall.net\/f17dh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancroxall.net\/f17dh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancroxall.net\/f17dh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}