Nicholas Brown and Imre Szema, Eds. Pierre Bourdieu: Fieldwork in Culture.

• Author: Bradley, Richard
• Position: Book Review

Maryland: Rowan and Littlefield, 2000. xii + 253 pages.

One of the most exciting aspects of intellectual history is the transmission of ideas from one country to another. Whether it is a case of Nietzsche obsessively re-reading Emerson, of French symbolist poets reworking the poetic principles of Poe, or of Americans interpreting, reinterpreting and misinterpreting the work of thinkers such as Herbert Spencer or Michel Foucault, the ongoing trans-Atlantic dialogue between Europe and America has proven to be a perennially rich area of study.

As the field of Atlantic studies develops and matures, collections such as this one will become increasingly important. More than a collection of essays on the influence of Pierre Bourdieu's concept of culture and cultural production, it is also a collection of meditations on the trans-Atlantic transmission of ideas. More particularly, it is a series of studies of how the French thought of Bourdieu has been transformed, reinterpreted, and made to serve the needs of a very different cultural milieu in North America. The collection not only includes meditations by American scholars on this subject, but also includes a discussion by Bourdieu himself on the trans-Atlantic passage and reception of his own ideas in America.

Pierre Bourdieu, a teacher of Michel Foucault, is one of the more important French theorists of the second half of the twentieth century. He has had a seminal influence in fields as various as sociology, anthropology, aesthetics, and education. This collection of essays discusses the reception and transformation of his ideas in the American academy, particularly in sociology, literary theory, and cultural studies.

The work is divided into two sections. The first part deals with theoretical issues while the essays in the second part examine concrete applications of Bourdiesian model. These specific case studies are particularly valuable.

In the first essay, John Guillory tackles the subject of North American resistance to Bourdieu's thought. In "Bourdieu's Refusal" Guillory discusses American perceptions of Bourdieu's seemingly reductionist theories of human nature. This essay also examines Bourdieu's thought in relation to the creation of cultural and economic value.

One of the key essays in this section is by Daniel Simeoni. In "Anglicizing Bourdieu" Simeoni provides an excellent overview of the problems of adapting Bourdieu's thought to America. As noted, Bourdieu himself weighs in on...