{"title":"Literary celebrities as counterpublics: A comparative study of Gao Xingjian and Toni Morrison","authors":"Michael Ka Chi Cheuk","doi":"10.1386/ajms_00054_1","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Despite its universal importance, the Nobel Prize in literature, which is based in Sweden and administered by the Swedish Academy, is a central European literary prize. And the prestige which the Nobel Prize bestows upon its winners is fuelled by a central-European type of fetishization\n of intellectual achievement, in which Nobel laureates are more known than they are read. Rather than being publicly recognized for their literary achievements, Nobel Prize-winning authors become literary celebrities who represent various kinds of Nobel-related capitals, including political\n capital, cultural capital and economic capital. In this article, I investigate on two non-European, Nobel Prize-winning authors, Gao Xingjian (the first Chinese-language Nobel author, 2000) and Toni Morrison (the first African American female Nobel author, 1993), and how they represent different\n conceptions of literary celebrities, and by extension different types of counterpublics. In order to study the relationship between Nobel literary laureates, storytelling and the representation of marginalized groups in the public domain, I examine and compare how Gao Xingjian’s and\n Toni Morrison’s Nobel lectures give voice to the Sinophone community and the African American community respectively. For Gao’s case, I study his Nobel lecture against the backdrop of the Chinese ‘Nobel complex’. In Morrison’s case, I examine her Nobel lecture\n as being re-presented in her appearances on Oprah’s Book Club, a reading initiative launched by the popular American television talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show.","PeriodicalId":43197,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"3","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1386/ajms_00054_1","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 3
Abstract
Despite its universal importance, the Nobel Prize in literature, which is based in Sweden and administered by the Swedish Academy, is a central European literary prize. And the prestige which the Nobel Prize bestows upon its winners is fuelled by a central-European type of fetishization
of intellectual achievement, in which Nobel laureates are more known than they are read. Rather than being publicly recognized for their literary achievements, Nobel Prize-winning authors become literary celebrities who represent various kinds of Nobel-related capitals, including political
capital, cultural capital and economic capital. In this article, I investigate on two non-European, Nobel Prize-winning authors, Gao Xingjian (the first Chinese-language Nobel author, 2000) and Toni Morrison (the first African American female Nobel author, 1993), and how they represent different
conceptions of literary celebrities, and by extension different types of counterpublics. In order to study the relationship between Nobel literary laureates, storytelling and the representation of marginalized groups in the public domain, I examine and compare how Gao Xingjian’s and
Toni Morrison’s Nobel lectures give voice to the Sinophone community and the African American community respectively. For Gao’s case, I study his Nobel lecture against the backdrop of the Chinese ‘Nobel complex’. In Morrison’s case, I examine her Nobel lecture
as being re-presented in her appearances on Oprah’s Book Club, a reading initiative launched by the popular American television talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show.