http://repub.eur.nl/res/org/9733/ List of Publications en http://repub.eur.nl/static-eur/img/logo.png http://repub.eur.nl http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/21337/ 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z Large numbers of tourists travel to Transylvania every year, looking for traces of Count Dracula. This article investigates why people feel the need to connect fictional stories, such as Dracula, with identifiable physical locations, and why they subsequently want to visit these locations. Based on field work, it is concluded that the experience of the Dracula tourist is characterised by a dynamic between two partially contradictory modes. First, Dracula tourists are driven by a desire to make a concrete comparison between the landscape they are visiting and their mental image. On the other hand, this rational approach to trace reality is contrasted with a more intuitive, emotional desire for a temporary symbiosis of both worlds. Reijnders, S. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/17489/ 2009-12-03T00:00:00Z As a result of mass migration, the ethnic composition of western countries has become increasingly diverse. Both inside and outside academia, this development has led to heated discussions about whether ethnic minorities are - or even have to be - assimilated into mainstream society. In Assimilation into the Literary Mainstream, Pauwke Berkers addresses how literary critics, policy makers and textbook editors have dealt with ethnic diversity in the United States, the Netherlands and Germany between 1955 and 2005. How much newspaper coverage has been devoted to ethnic minority authors and how has this changed over time? And to what extent do reviewers discuss the ethnic background of such writers? Moreover, have national literary policy organizations actively stimulated or largely ignored ethnic diversity? Finally, to what degree are ethnic minority authors canonized in national literary histories? Examining the use of ethnic discourse, the numerical representation and the labels used to describe ethnic minority authors, the author demonstrates that ethnic boundaries are relatively weak, moderately strong and strong in the literary fields of the U.S., the Netherlands and Germany respectively. At a macro-level, these cross-national differences are related to different national repertoires of evaluation. However, within national literary fields, ethnic classifications differ, depending on the structural position that different literary institutions hold vis-à-vis the economic and political field. Berkers, P.P.L. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/18631/ 2009-12-03T00:00:00Z Popular music is one of the cultural fields – together with film, photography, and jazz – which in the second half of the twentieth century have apparently gained much in status and recognition (Janssen, 1999; Janssen, Kuipers & Verboord, 2009). Popular music has become ‘aesthetically mobile’ - developing from a devalued form of entertainment to the status of art. This reordering of the position of popular music seems to be an aspect of a more general change in cultural classification systems of modern western societies. DiMaggio (1987, 1991) has argued that the cultural classification systems of western societies have become more differentiated, less hierarchical, with weaker boundaries and less universal. The number of genres has expanded, genres are no longer ranked in a hierarchical status hierarchy, the boundaries between genres have become less potent and less strongly defended and the consensus on how to classify cultural genres has diminished. The hierarchical, universal classification of ‘popular’ and ‘high culture’ seems to have eroded and given way to a multitude of genres that cannot be ranked in one hierarchical dimension and broad classifications such as high vs. low seem to have been displaced by more finely grained classifications and distinctions. Although genres such as popular music, jazz, literature and theatre can no longer be placed easily within ‘high’ or ‘low’, new hierarchies seem to have appeared within (previously ‘popular’) genres (Holt, 1997; Baumann, 2001). In this dissertation, I study the way in which popular music critics create, maintain and contest new and old symbolic boundaries and classification structures within popular music. How do critics within the field of popular music ‘make sense’ of cultural products? What kind of criteria do they use to evaluate popular music and how do they classify artists into categories? Do they create or draw upon established hierarchical boundaries such as ‘art’ vs. ‘commerce’ in making distinctions? Do they classify along other lines? Venrooij, A.T. van http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/18636/ 2009-12-03T00:00:00Z Scholars have used a variety of labels to describe broad social and cultural changes characteristic of Western societies since the 1950s, such as postmodernism, consumerism, individualization, and globalization, to name only a few. Accompanying such broad changes, scholars also contend that traditional cultural hierarchies (i.e. “high culture”) have been eroded by the “massification of elite culture” (Lash 1990), as well as through declining cohesiveness among elites (DiMaggio 1991, 1992) and increasing eclecticism in their cultural preferences (Peterson and Kern 1996). Meanwhile, the concomitant commercialization of cultural fields, including those that deal in high culture (e.g. symphony orchestras), has been associated with factors ranging from the growing market orientation of arts professionals (Peterson 1986; DiMaggio 1986, 1991) to the rise of consumption practices as a source of individual and collective identity (Featherstone 1991, Zukin and Maguire 2004). In addition to declining hierarchy and commercialization of the arts, others point to the rapid expansion in the volume and variety of cultural goods available in the global marketplace, which has intensified and destabilized global cultural flows (Appadurai 1996; Tomlinson 1999). Schmutz, V.C. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/17050/ 2009-08-01T00:00:00Z The appreciation of nine distinct visual art styles was assessed by presenting color plates to some 3000 Flemish respondents. We set out to study the relation between vertical cultural boundary crossing, or omnivorousness, and horizontal boundary crossing, i.e., a preference for both classical and modern works within the domain of legitimate visual arts. We find that, Bourdieu's scholarship notwithstanding, a substantial proportion of our sample enjoyed both classical and modern works. This latter segment also ventured somewhat into popular culture, but markedly less than the taste group limiting its visual arts preferences to modern works. Those with a visual arts taste restricted to classical works were much less culturally active, as were those with low preference levels for most modern and classical visual art styles. The analyses demonstrate that horizontal and vertical cultural boundary crossing have different meanings and probably represent distinct strategies for distinction as well. Omnivorousness can thus occur in different ways, which calls for a reconceptualization of the concept. Breadth of taste should be seen as only one dimension of taste patterns, which need to be qualified further by the specific combination of cultural genres on which they focus. Berghman, M. Eijck, K. van http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/18224/ 2009-06-25T00:00:00Z Since the 1980s, media and entertainment companies have developed into large cross-media multinationals. Their international structure, strategy and operation have been investigated extensively. However, these majors operate globally by having local offices in various markets. So far, little attention has been paid to this aspect. In Where Corporate Culture and Local Markets Meet, Miriam van de Kamp addresses the local operation of international music and film corporations in the Dutch market between 1990 and 2005. This study focuses on questions such as: Does globalisation lead to cultural homogenisation and cultural imperialism? How do international cultural industries deal with local markets, and domestic products in these markets? And is there a future for local cultural products in a market dominated by international media and entertainment companies and where sales for entertainment products on physical carriers are declining? Special attention is paid to the operation of the music and film divisions of Sony, Universal and Warner in the Dutch market. An analysis of chart and industry data provides insights in the relation between successful international and domestic products and the major players in the Dutch music and film market. Drawing on extensive desk research and interviews with managers at the local divisions of the music and film majors, this book furthermore sheds light on decision and operation processes that led to the product portfolios and the positions of these majors in the Dutch music and film market. Where Corporate Culture and Local Markets Meet stresses the role of organisation culture and local cultural entrepreneurs for the local operation strategy. It demonstrates that interaction with the local market defines how a major operates in that market. Kamp, M.C. van de http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/8563/ 2007-02-02T00:00:00Z Rotterdam heeft de naam een metropool te zijn. Het imago van het wereldse ‘Manhattan aan de Maas’ is sterker dan ooit te voren. Hoe is dit beeld ontstaan? In haar proefschrift Dromen van een Metropool: De creatieve klasse van Rotterdam 1970-2000, onderzoekt Patricia van Ulzen de ingrijpende veranderingen van het stedelijke en culturele klimaat in Rotterdam tussen 1970 en 2000, en de rol die kunstenaars en culturele ondernemers hierin speelden. Ze laat zien dat het op de eerste plaats een nieuwe visie op Rotterdam was, die de ontwikkeling van de stad in deze periode heeft gestimuleerd. Over de vraag wat de belangrijkste veranderingen zijn geweest in het stedelijke en culturele klimaat van Rotterdam tussen 1970 en 2000, en wanneer die hebben plaatsgevonden, lopen de meningen uiteen. Volgens Patricia van Ulzen heeft vooral het ontstaan van een nieuwe visie op Rotterdam de ontwikkeling van de stad in deze periode gestimuleerd. Was Rotterdam in 1970 nog een stad met een identiteitscrisis, die niet groot maar klein wilde zijn, en gezellig in plaats van zakelijk, rond 2000 presenteerde de stad zich als de meest grootstedelijke van alle Nederlandse steden. Kunstenaars en andere culturele experts een groep die tegenwoordig wordt aangeduid als de creatieve klasse waren de eersten die deze grootstedelijke visie ontwikkelden. Zo verrichtten zij het voorwerk voor het Nieuwe Rotterdam dat vanaf het einde van de jaren tachtig concreet vorm kreeg. In het goed gedocumenteerde en geïllustreerde proefschrift geeft Patricia van Ulzen niet alleen een historisch overzicht van de contemporaine culturele geschiedenis van Rotterdam, maar ook een uitgebreide analyse van het beeld van de stad, zoals dat oprijst uit allerlei materiaal, waaronder tv-reclames en films. Ze toont aan hoe een groep van Rotterdamse architecten, vormgevers, kunstenaars, cultuurspecialisten, en horeca- en culturele ondernemers zich vanaf de jaren zeventig verzetten om van Rotterdam een kleinschalige stad te maken. Daarbij grepen zij terug op de grootstedelijke aspiraties van Rotterdam in de negentiende eeuw, het interbellum en de wederopbouwperiode. Ulzen, P.C. van http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/7885/ 2005-03-18T00:00:00Z Actors in the field of culture (producers, mediators, consumers, etc,) continuously classify cultural products according to their alleged meaning, style, quality, effects or other properties. Such classifications do not emanate from the content of cultural objects, but are socially enabled and socially constructed events that vary across time and place. Likewise, cultural classification systems – the ways in which members of particular societies classify the supply of cultural artifacts and develop corresponding rules of behavior and practices – show significant variations that seem closely connected to wider social and cultural conditions. This inaugural lecture addresses the evolution of cultural classification systems in late twentieth century Western societies, in particular Dutch society, and seeks to elucidate the impact of wider societal features and transformations on the development of such systems. The author argues that changes in social structure, processes of emancipation and individualization, and the growing role of the market in the domain of culture, eroded institutionalized cultural authority and traditional cultural hierarchies and boundaries, and created more differentiated, less hierarchical, less universal, and more loosely-bounded cultural classification systems than those in place during the first part of the twentieth century. Accordingly, conventional ‘high’ art forms have suffered a loss in status and seem increasingly to have become one of many options to actors in the cultural field. Janssen, M.S.S.E.