The economy of prestige : prizes, awards, and the circulation of cultural value
This is a book about one of the great untold stories of modern cultural life: the remarkable ascendancy of prizes in literature and the arts. Such prizes and the competitions they crown are almost as old as the arts themselves, but their number and power--and their consequences for society and culture at large--have expanded to an unprecedented degree in our day. In a wide-ranging overview of this phenomenon, James F. English documents the dramatic rise of the awards industry and its complex role within what he describes as an economy of cultural prestige
Print Book, English, 2008
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2008
xii, 409 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm
9780674030435, 0674030435
221175319
Introduction : Prizes and the study of culture
Prize frenzy
Precursors of the modern cultural prize
The logic of proliferation
Prizes as entertainment
The making of a prize
Taste management
Trophies as objects of production and trade
Scandalous currency
The new rhetoric of prize commentary
Strategies of condescension, styles of play
The arts as international sport
The new geography of prestige
Prizes and the politics of world culture
Appendix A : The rise of the prize
Appendix B : Prizes and commerce
Appendix C : Winner take all : six lists
Originally published: 2005