Abstracts
Abstract
The book festival provides an intriguing instance of the overlapping cultural, social and economic dimensions of contemporary literary culture. This article proposes the application of a new conceptual framework, that of game-inspired thinking, to the study of book festivals. Game-inspired thinking uses games as metaphors that concentrate and exaggerate aspects of cultural phenomena in order to produce new knowledge about their operations. It is also an arts-informed methodology that offers a mid-level perspective between empirical case studies and abstract models. As a method, our Bookfestivalopoly and other games focus attention on the material, social and ideological dimensions of book festivals. In particular, they confirm the presence of neoliberal pressures and neocolonial inequalities in the “world republic of letters.” Our research thus makes a contribution to knowledge about the role of festivals within contemporary literary culture, and provides a model for researchers of cultural phenomena who may want to adopt game-inspired, arts-informed thinking as an alternative to traditional disciplinary methods.
Résumé
Le festival du livre constitue un exemple intéressant quant à la manière dont les dimensions culturelle, sociale et économique se chevauchent dans la culture littéraire contemporaine. Le présent article propose l’application d’un nouveau cadre conceptuel à l’étude des festivals du livre, celui de la réflexion inspirée par le jeu. Dans cette dernière, les jeux agissent comme des métaphores qui concentrent et exagèrent certains aspects de phénomènes culturels afin de produire un savoir inédit sur leurs mécanismes. Il s’agit aussi d’une méthodologie nourrie par les arts et qui offre une perspective à mi-chemin entre études de cas empiriques et modèles abstraits. Ainsi, notre « Bookfestivalopoly » (littéralement : Festivaldulivropoly) et les autres jeux dont nous nous inspirons ramènent l’attention sur les dimensions matérielle, sociale et idéologique des festivals du livre. Plus particulièrement, ils confirment la présence de pressions néolibérales et d’iniquités néocoloniales à l'oeuvre dans « la république mondiale des lettres ». Nous souhaitons, par nos travaux, contribuer à la connaissance du rôle des festivals au sein de la culture littéraire contemporaine et soumettre un nouveau modèle aux chercheurs qui s'intéressent aux phénomènes culturels et aimeraient adopter une approche inspirée par le jeu et les arts plutôt que les approches disciplinaires habituelles.
Appendices
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