Date: Wed, 23 Sep 1998 11:25:48 +0000
From: R.J.R.Cook-AT-reading.ac.uk (Roger Cook)
Subject: Re: PB and New Concepts


I guess I meant that when habitus and field are felt to collaborate
seamlessly it feels 'miraculous', because the struggle is concealed in the
apparent fluency.
In an important litle book of the 1960s *The Shape of Time;remarks on the
history of things* George Kubler made reference to the fortuitous
conjunction of artistic temperament and position in the historical
sequence.

'The analogy of a track yields a useful formulation in the discussion of
artists. Each man's lifework is also a work in a series extending beyond
him in either or both directions, depending upon his position in the track
he occupies. To the usual coordinates fixing the individual's position- his
temerament and his training- there is also the moment of his entrance, this
being the moment in the tradition-early, middle or late-with which his
biologicl opportunity coincides. ..."Good" or "bad" entrances are more than
matters of position in the sequence. They also depend upon the union of
temperamental endowments with specific positions. Every postion is keyed,
as it were, to the action of a certain range of temperaments. When a
specific temperament interlocks with a favorable position, the fortunate
individual can extract from the situation a walth of previously unimagined
consequences. This achievement may be denied to other persons, as well as
to the same person at a different time. Thus every birth can be imagined as
set into play on two wheels of fortune, one governing the allotment of its
temperament, the other ruling its entrance into a sequence.' p.6-7.

What Kubler is describing is the relation of artistic habitus to the
cultural field. Sometimes that relation seems 'miraculous' and that is what
has led to the romantic notion of genius, something we are now, of course
rightly suspicious or at least critical of.

Roger

>my take on *Rules of Art* was that Flaubert, being a 'dominated dominant,'
>was in the only kind of position that would be capable of changing the
>field.  i'm not sure what you mean by miracle.
>
>- deb
>
>
>At 08:52 PM 9/22/1998 +0000, you wrote:
>>>Hi!
>>>
>>>I think "conatus" is a term of Spinoza's, referring to an organism's
>>>attempt to persist in its own being.
>>
>>This rings a bell with me! I have been trying to read *Rules of Art* more
>>rigorously from the begining, and have been struck by Bourdieu's idea of
>>determination/indetermination, and Flaubert's stategy to transcend these
>>alternatives, something all 'creative' agents aspire to, often against real
>>and awesome odds, which is why, without romanticizing, real achievement in
>>any field is something of a 'miracle'- meaning by this nothing
>>supernatural, but a fortuitous conjunction of habitus and field.
>>
>>
>>Roger Cook
>>The University of Reading
>>
>>
>>**********************************************************************
>>Contributions: bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>>Commands: majordomo-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>>Requests: bourdieu-approval-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>>
>>
>
>**********************************************************************
>Contributions: bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>Commands: majordomo-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>Requests: bourdieu-approval-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu


**********************************************************************
Contributions: bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Commands: majordomo-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Requests: bourdieu-approval-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu