Marktanalysen From mail-order book clubs to online book box subscriptions: the market for direct sales
Instructors: Jun.-Prof. Dr. Corinna Norrick-RühlShortname: Marktanalysen
Course No.: 05.610.610
Course Type: Seminar
Requirements / organisational issues
This seminar is part of module 3 "Analysen zur Buchmarktentwicklung". You will be expected to give an oral report in English and write a seminar paper in English or German to pass the class. Active participation in classroom discussions and preparation of required reading for classroom discussions is obligatory.Recommended reading list
- D. Carter, ‘Middlebrow book culture’, in M. Savage and L. Hanquinet (eds.), Routledge International Handbook of the Sociology of Art and Culture (New York, NY: Routledge, 2015) pp. 349–69.
- S. Lokatis, ‘A Concept Circles the Globe. From the Lesering to the Internationalization of the Club Business’, in 175 Years of Bertelsmann, pp. 132–71.
- C. Norrick-Rühl, ‘Two Peas in a Pod: Book Sales Clubs and Book Ownership in the Twentieth Century’, in E. Stead (ed.), Reading Books and Prints as Cultural Objects (Cham: Springer, 2018), pp. 231–50.
- J. Radway, A Feeling For Books. The Book-of-the-Month Club, Literary Taste, and Middle-Class Desire (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997).
Contents
This semester, we will analyze the market for direct selling of books. Direct selling, in a nutshell, is the sale of products to consumers in non-retail environments. That is, sales are made either in the comfort of the consumer's home, or in other convenient locations such as the workplace or schools. In essence, direct selling of books has been a form of disintermediation in the book industry for centuries.Our focus will be on the Anglophone book industries, especially the U.S. market, and we will consider the history of direct selling of books with a special emphasis on book sales clubs ("Buchgemeinschaften") and their role in book culture. As David Carter argues, subscription book clubs and similar "middlebrow" endeavors had a distinct "dual commitment to culture and to its wider diffusion". Since roughly the middle of the twentieth century until today, these clubs have influenced the canon and simultaneously subverted it through the popularization of reading and blurring of cultural categories and boundaries. Mail-order catalogues enabled consumers to shop for books in the comfort of their own homes, independent of infrastructure and without having to engage with a bookseller, avoiding judgment of reading preferences or embarrassment lest they appear ill-informed. Through book sales clubs, book ownership was transformed into an affordable and attainable goal for millions of people.
We will start the semester by talking about theories, models and terms that can help us understand direct selling of books and book clubs. We will then analyze a number of case studies chronologically, investigating changes, continuities and challenges in the history of direct selling of books. We will seek to understand the role that mail-order book culture and other forms of direct selling played in the twentieth century, but we will also discuss the opportunities for direct selling in the digital age.
Additional information
The language of instruction is English.Dates
| Date (Day of the week) | Time | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 10/16/2019 (Wednesday) | 14:15 - 15:45 | 01 423 P103 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |
| 10/23/2019 (Wednesday) | 14:15 - 15:45 | 01 423 P103 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |
| 10/30/2019 (Wednesday) | 14:15 - 15:45 | 01 423 P103 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |
| 11/06/2019 (Wednesday) | 14:15 - 15:45 | 01 423 P103 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |
| 11/13/2019 (Wednesday) | 14:15 - 15:45 | 01 423 P103 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |
| 11/20/2019 (Wednesday) | 14:15 - 15:45 | 01 423 P103 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |
| 11/27/2019 (Wednesday) | 14:15 - 15:45 | 01 423 P103 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |
| 12/04/2019 (Wednesday) | 14:15 - 15:45 | 01 423 P103 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |
| 12/11/2019 (Wednesday) | 14:15 - 15:45 | 01 423 P103 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |
| 12/18/2019 (Wednesday) | 14:15 - 15:45 | 01 423 P103 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |
| 01/08/2020 (Wednesday) | 14:15 - 15:45 | 01 423 P103 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |
| 01/15/2020 (Wednesday) | 14:15 - 15:45 | 01 423 P103 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |
| 01/22/2020 (Wednesday) | 14:15 - 15:45 | 01 423 P103 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |
| 01/29/2020 (Wednesday) | 14:15 - 15:45 | 01 423 P103 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |
| 02/05/2020 (Wednesday) | 14:15 - 15:45 | 01 423 P103 1141 - Philosophisches Seminargebäude |