Aesthetic Autonomy Revisited: Toward a Model of Literature As Powerful Social Agent

While literary works have repeatedly demonstrated their significant impact on social action on a global scale, sociology has often been reluctant to acknowledge literature's agency. Instead, sociologists tend to emphasize the social determinants of literature, overlooking its potential as an active force. The current sociology of literature, dominated by Bourdieu’s field theory, primarily focuses on literary production.

To remedy this epistemological asymmetry, we reintroduce a modified notion of aesthetic autonomy. Drawing on the phenomenology of reading (particularly the Constance School) and Actor-Network Theory, we argue that literary works exercise a degree of agency within the reading process. Rather than viewing literary texts merely as resources or critical material, most empirical readers engage in a more symmetrical dialogue with the text. We reject the objectifying approach that treats literary works as mere objects of analysis and instead embrace an objective perspective that allows texts to "object to what is said about them" (Latour 2005).

Methodologically, we explore this interaction between readers and texts through the aesthetic experience of reading, which we treat as a combination of intra-textual elements (literary devices) and extra-textual contexts (socio-historical realities in which the work was produced and received). We perceive the production and reception of literature as co-constitutive of literary meaning rather than purely deterministic.

Empirically, we investigate the aesthetic experience of reading the novel Fama o biciklistima (The Cyclist Conspiracy, 1987) by Serbian author Svetislav Basara. An enduring bestseller and highly consecrated work, the novel re-examines and deconstructs ideologies through its vigorous adoption of postmodern aesthetics. Esteemed for its deep understanding of the late 20^th century Zeitgeist, the novel acts as a powerful agent of social action. We analyze its agency through triangulation, examining its production and reception together with a formal analysis of its structure.