Johan Heilbron

Towards a Sociology of Translation Book Translations as a Cultural World-System

This article argues that the translation of books may be fruitfully understood as constituting a cultural world-system. The working of this system, based on a core-periphery structure, accounts for the uneven flows of translations between language groups as well as for the varying role of translations within language groups. The final part outlines how this general sociological model may be further developed.

De-Sportization of Fighting Contests The Origins and Dynamics of No Holds Barred Events and the Theory of Sportization

On the basis of an empirical analysis of the emergence, spread and transformation of No Holds Barred fighting contests during the 1990s, we argue that Norbert Eliass model of sportization represents a fruitful but not sufficiently differentiated framework for understanding the recent development of combat sports and fighting contests. Although the martial arts in the 20th century provide striking examples of processes of sportization and para-sportization, the rise of No Holds Barred events in the 1990s represented an opposing trend, a process of de-sportization . The analysis of No Holds Barred contests demonstrates that both sportization and de-sportization trends depend primarily on the interests of the organizers, and in particular on the degree to which they rely on the perspectives of practitioners, spectators, or viewers. The decisive factor for the predominance of the latter perspective was the formation of a new and poorly regulated market for visual material, which emerged with pay-per-view television. This allowed media entrepreneurs to commercialize non-sanctioned events, which depend primarily on the demands and fantasies of viewers who are less interested in the specifics of particular sports or games than in the antinomian excitement produced by the transgression of the rules and conventions of ordinary life. The case of No Holds Barred fighting thus suggests that new markets for visual material are likely to become an important factor in the development of spectator sports and sport-like forms of entertainment. It also suggests that regulatory regimes are an essential feature for the actual outcome of the changes that these new markets may bring about. Public pressure eventually led to the disappearance of No Holds Barred events from the major US cable television networks and from the full contact fighting scene in most Western European countries. In response, various initiatives worked towards a re-sportization of the matches, a process that has led to the transformation of No Holds Barred tournaments into Mixed Martial Arts matches.

Toward a transnational history of the social sciences.

Historical accounts of the social sciences have too often accepted local or national institutions as a self-evident framework of analysis, instead of considering them as being embedded in transnational relations of various kinds. Evolving patterns of transnational mobility and exchange cut through the neat distinction between the local, the national, and the inter-national, and thus represent an essential component in the dynamics of the social sciences, as well as a fruitful perspective for rethinking their historical development. In this programmatic outline, it is argued that a transnational history of the social sciences may be fruitfully understood on the basis of three general mechanisms, which have structured the transnational flows of people and ideas in decisive ways: (a) the functioning of international scholarly institutions, (b) the transnational mobility of scholars, and (c) the politics of trans-national exchange of nonacademic institutions. The article subsequently examines and illustrates each of these mechanisms.

Les métamorphoses du durkheimisme, 1920-1940

Johan Heilbron : Die Verwandlung des Durkheimismus, 1920-1940. ; ; Die franzosische Soziologie nimmt in den Jahren zwischen den Kriegen eine paradoxale Form an. Obwohl er institutionnel eine Randerscheinung war, erfreute sich der Durkheimismus trotzdem eines aussergewohnlichen Prestiges, um mehr und mehr von der neuen Generation verlassen und angefochten zu werden. Zum Verstandnis dieser Entwicklung werden hier zwei Beziehungen untersucht : zunachst die Verwandlung des durkheimischen Netzes und besonders die mehr und mehr spurbare Trennung zwischen Professoren und Forschern, und zweitens, die Nachfolgerkrise, die zu einem Neudefinierungsprozess der Soziologie fuhrte, gegrundet auf dem Bruch mit dem Durkheimismus. Diese Wandlung wird oft als der Uebergang von der « klassischen » zur « modernen » Soziologie beschrieben.

The social sciences as an emerging global field

Exploring the ‘globalization’ of the social sciences, this article first presents an historical interpretation of how transnational exchange in the social sciences has evolved. Earlier forms of international circulation are distinct from the more global arrangements that have emerged since the late twentieth century. Considering this globalizing field in more detail, it is argued that its predominant characteristic is a core–periphery structure, with a duopolistic Euro-American core, multiple semi-peripheries and a wide range of peripheries. Focusing on the global level, much of the existing research, however, has neglected the emergence of transnational regional structures. The formation of a transnational European field of social science is taken as an example of this process of transnational regionalization. The social sciences worldwide can thus be seen as a four-level structure. In addition to the local and national level, transnational regional as well as global structures have gained increasing importance and a better understanding of ‘globalization’ requires more precise studies of both levels, in their own right as well as in their evolving interconnectedness.

A Cultural Globalization of Popular Music? American, Dutch, French, and German Popular Music Charts (1965 to 2006)

In this article, the authors address the question of whether and how the appreciation of popular music consumers has globalized in the four decades since the mid-1960s. They use information from American, Dutch, French, and German popular music charts from 1965 through 2006. They find no corroboration for an overall trend toward an internationalization of hits. However, important shifts are noticeable underneath the surface. For the period up until 1989, the authors find increasing international diversity as well as increasing Americanization. From the 1990s onwards, they find a growing popularity of national music in all three European countries in the study.

Translation as a cultural world system

Abstract The translation of books and the international flows which result from it, can be viewed a cultural world system. The working of this system, based on a core‐periphery structure, accounts for the uneven flows of translations between language groups as well as for the varying role of translations within language groups. The article outlines some of the consequences of this sociological model and suggests directions for further research.

The rise of the social sciences and the formation of modernity : conceptual change in context, 1750-1850

The rise of the social sciences and the formation of modernity : conceptual change in context, 1750-1850

Informalization or de-sportization of fighting contests? A rejoinder to Raúl Sánchez García and Dominic Malcolm

In their article on the international development of ‘Mixed Martial Arts’, Raúl Sánchez García and Dominic Malcolm (2010) raise several important questions. The issues at stake, especially those pertaining to the regulation of violence, are all the more important, since they are central not merely to the study of fighting sports and martial arts, but to the entire domain of the sociology of sport and leisure. In this rejoinder, we will briefly respond to the main criticisms the authors raised in relation to our earlier analysis (van Bottenburg and Heilbron, 2006), raising a few questions about their alternative account as well as more general theoretical issues. Both of our articles aim to explain the emergence in 1993 of ‘Ultimate Fighting Championships’ (UFC) and the subsequent spread and transformation of these fighting contests. A first issue in the interpretation of this development concerns the level of actual violence involved. According to Sánchez García and Malcolm our analysis is predicated on an ‘exaggerated portrayal’ of the level of violence (p. 46). The question here, it seems to us, is not to establish the exact level of violence, as measured by the number of deaths for example, but rather to compare the practices of ‘ultimate fighting’ to those of the established fighting sports from a developmental perspective. Anyone who has studied a sufficient number of videotapes of the ‘ultimate’ or ‘cage fighting’ contests of the 1990s can conclude that they were significantly more violent than the existing regular fighting sports. It is quite puzzling that Sánchez García and Rejoinder

Fiction from the Periphery: How Dutch Writers Enter the Field of English-Language Literature

Literary translations are worldwide predominantly made from English, which is far ahead of any other language. While various studies have proposed interpretations of this supremacy few have examined translation flows in the opposite direction, studying how literary authors from the periphery can transcend the boundaries of their language and gain access to the center of the global literary world by being translated into English. From the theoretical perspective of a multi-level field approach, we propose a case study of how literary translations from Dutch are published and presented in the UK and the US. The study specifies by which mechanisms Dutch authors overcame the obstacles they encountered on the macro, meso and micro levels. The theoretical framework proposed contributes to sociological understanding of how authors from the periphery can enter an internationally dominant center, demonstrating that such an understanding is part of the same theoretical approach that accounts for the far more frequent flows from the core to the periphery.