Scholarship, community formation and book reviews: The Literarisches Centralblatt as arena and meeting place
Book reviews serve multiple functions. They are not only used to assess the merit of individual books but also contribute to the creation and maintenance of scholarly communities. This paper draws on nineteenth-century book reviews to outline three of their features that contributed to the selfd...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences
2021-09-01
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| Series: | Studia Historiae Scientiarum |
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| Online Access: | https://ojs.ejournals.eu/SHS/article/view/7547 |
| _version_ | 1797361726998446080 |
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| author | Christiaan Engberts |
| author_facet | Christiaan Engberts |
| author_sort | Christiaan Engberts |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description |
Book reviews serve multiple functions. They are not only used to assess the merit of individual books but also contribute to the creation and maintenance of scholarly communities.
This paper draws on nineteenth-century book reviews to outline three of their features that contributed to the selfdefinition of such communities: the assessment of books, the assessment of authors, and the use of positive and negative politeness strategies to address individual authors as well as a broader audience.
The analysis will be based on the book reviews of the German Semitist Theodor Nöldeke and the experimental psychologist Wilhelm Wundt in the Literarisches Centralblatt in the eighteenseventies. In their book reviews they both criticized and praised their peers, which turned review journals like the Centralblatt in arenas for polemic debate as well as meeting places for likeminded scholars.
To be more precise, book reviews were used to communicate standards of scholarly excellence, expectations of the character and skills of scholars, and the acknowledgement of the value of the continued existence of aims and interests shared among a large group of academically educated and employed scholars. By contributing to the establishment and maintenance of scholarly peer groups with shared values, book reviews also reinforced the dividing line between academic researchers and lay contributors to their fields.
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| first_indexed | 2024-03-08T15:57:37Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-7bb077edb52a4a69ae7bad6e851b9451 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2451-3202 2543-702X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-08T15:57:37Z |
| publishDate | 2021-09-01 |
| publisher | Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Studia Historiae Scientiarum |
| spelling | doaj.art-7bb077edb52a4a69ae7bad6e851b94512024-01-08T15:33:42ZengPolish Academy of Arts and SciencesStudia Historiae Scientiarum2451-32022543-702X2021-09-012010.4467/2543702XSHS.21.019.140508334Scholarship, community formation and book reviews: The Literarisches Centralblatt as arena and meeting placeChristiaan Engberts0Utrecht University (Utrecht, The Netherlands) Book reviews serve multiple functions. They are not only used to assess the merit of individual books but also contribute to the creation and maintenance of scholarly communities. This paper draws on nineteenth-century book reviews to outline three of their features that contributed to the selfdefinition of such communities: the assessment of books, the assessment of authors, and the use of positive and negative politeness strategies to address individual authors as well as a broader audience. The analysis will be based on the book reviews of the German Semitist Theodor Nöldeke and the experimental psychologist Wilhelm Wundt in the Literarisches Centralblatt in the eighteenseventies. In their book reviews they both criticized and praised their peers, which turned review journals like the Centralblatt in arenas for polemic debate as well as meeting places for likeminded scholars. To be more precise, book reviews were used to communicate standards of scholarly excellence, expectations of the character and skills of scholars, and the acknowledgement of the value of the continued existence of aims and interests shared among a large group of academically educated and employed scholars. By contributing to the establishment and maintenance of scholarly peer groups with shared values, book reviews also reinforced the dividing line between academic researchers and lay contributors to their fields. https://ojs.ejournals.eu/SHS/article/view/7547book reviewsstandards of scholarshipscholarly charactercommunities of scholarshiplate-nineteenth-century GermanyTheodor Nöldeke |
| spellingShingle | Christiaan Engberts Scholarship, community formation and book reviews: The Literarisches Centralblatt as arena and meeting place Studia Historiae Scientiarum book reviews standards of scholarship scholarly character communities of scholarship late-nineteenth-century Germany Theodor Nöldeke |
| title | Scholarship, community formation and book reviews: The Literarisches Centralblatt as arena and meeting place |
| title_full | Scholarship, community formation and book reviews: The Literarisches Centralblatt as arena and meeting place |
| title_fullStr | Scholarship, community formation and book reviews: The Literarisches Centralblatt as arena and meeting place |
| title_full_unstemmed | Scholarship, community formation and book reviews: The Literarisches Centralblatt as arena and meeting place |
| title_short | Scholarship, community formation and book reviews: The Literarisches Centralblatt as arena and meeting place |
| title_sort | scholarship community formation and book reviews the literarisches centralblatt as arena and meeting place |
| topic | book reviews standards of scholarship scholarly character communities of scholarship late-nineteenth-century Germany Theodor Nöldeke |
| url | https://ojs.ejournals.eu/SHS/article/view/7547 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT christiaanengberts scholarshipcommunityformationandbookreviewstheliterarischescentralblattasarenaandmeetingplace |