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Arrivals have an unexplored significance as a phenomenon in sociology. This article studies depictions of arrivals to art education courses at Swedish folk high schools in fiction. These arrivals are liminal transitions between two states, warranting personal change, either being the solution to a previous problem or creating a problem (to be solved). Many spaces in society have lost their status as total institutions physically and symbolically detached from the rest of society. The rarity of and desire for totalizing milieus create possibilities for self-exploration and self-development in characters, enabling authenticity and revealing truths of social life. The depiction of the folk high school as a total institution of isolation and a liminal space for change is effective in (re-)producing cultural images of the folk high school and as a literary device to contain characters and develop conflicts that arise from the milieu. At the same time, these arrival stories demonstrate the importance of liminality in arrival and suggest that arrival be studied as a general phenomenon to uncover hidden facets of institutionalized social life.

Although demanding, badly paid, and of uncertain value for a creative career, there exists a curious attraction to precarious “creative jobs.” While attracted to the job’s creative aspects, workers often find themselves without control or final authority over their creative output, which is instead in the hands of management or clients. Michael L. Siciliano’s ambitious book Creative Control: The Ambivalence of Work in the Culture Industries details this affective and aesthetic attraction to “cool” but precarious jobs.

Among artists who have made their debut, a minority will become credited a second time in their career. This article investigates why some fiction authors continue publishing books while others do not. The study tracks all 1479 novelists, who published their first book between 2001 and 2010 in Sweden, including their literary activities and the literary reception of the book and data on any second book published within eight years after the first book. Regression results indicate that being published by a core publishing house or an established publishing house in the semicore is associated with odds of continuation. Several predictors, about the author, literary activities, and literary reception are tested for career continuation. Some literary activities and notable literary receptions increase the odds of continuation. Market-based performance triumphs aesthetic-based performances in predicting career continuation. For authors being published by a core publishing house, literary activities and reception are important for continuation. These findings are discussed in relation to the opportunity structure associated with the institutional space of publishing houses and suggest a revision of Pierre-Michel Menger's thesis of successes in tournament careers as predicting career continuation.

Phillipa Chong’s Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times details the process of book reviewing from start to finish through interviews with reviewers of fiction books at major newspapers in the United States. The book contributes to the sociological understanding of reviewers’ responses to uncertainties when making evaluations, from editors assigning books to reviewers and reviewers reading books and reflecting about the consequences of writing a ‘‘bad’’ or ‘‘good’’ review to the procedures of book reviewing and the status of being a reviewer today and in the future. The book is placed within both an academic context and a wider audience of readers, an in-between situation common to many commercially published books. A hurdle to over-come for such books is the fact that readers in academia may be left wanting more: more about data and methods, theory development, empirical and conceptual integration, and related research. Considering these circumstances, the book holds much promise when outlining a classificatory scheme that is useful for studying evaluation processes, not only in book reviewing but also in other fields of cultural production and beyond.

How is art education valued in society? In Swedish public discourse the value of educational trajectories is often equated with their usefulness for employability. With competitive winner-takes-all labour markets for artists, art education is largely perceived as a worthless credential and form of education. But what kinds of worth does art education have among students themselves? This article draws on the approach of pragmatic sociology and individual and group interviews with 62 Swedish folk high school participants within the arts, to understand the meanings participants assign to post-compulsory education within the aesthetic realm. The students’ accounts belong to three broad themes, where art education is described as: (a) being a ‘stepping stone’ to becoming an artist, (b) allowing them to have ‘unique’ experiences while being in a particular state of creativity or (c) offering them a chance to regain health and general well-being after a difficult period. These results are discussed in relation to the relative institutional autonomy the folk high school possesses in the Swedish education system, as well as the possibilities of challenging the hegemonic ideas of ‘learning for earning’ that largely reject non-instrumental regimes of self-discovery and artistic creativity.

Why Do People Dream of Becoming Authors?

While becoming an author is a dream shared by many in Sweden, relatively few people can make it their full-time job. With such bleak prospects, why do people still dream of becoming authors? Drawing on insights from the sociology of creative work, this article explores and analyses potential answers to this question. These answers include (1) the nature of the vocation, (2) characteristics associated with the person who has invested in the dream, and (3) the values fulfilled when realizing the dream. Finally, it is suggested that the viability of the dream is challenged on a societal level by changes in youth culture and the contemporary media landscape.

Denna bok handlar om debutanters karriärvägar fram till deras skönlitterära debut och uppmärksamhet efteråt. Främst analyseras de urvalsinstanser som är avgörande för att bedöma framgången för debutanter, debutböcker och förlag. Dessa instansers arbete resulterar i pyramider av prestige med få debutanter, debutböcker och förlag i toppen.

Boken bygger på 80 intervjuer, redogörelser för författarkarriärer för över 800 debutanter som debuterade mellan åren 1997 till 2014 och material om över 150 förlag. Den ger unika inblickar i villkoren för skönlitterära debuter i vår tids Sverige.

This chapter presents an analysis of a video clip of a lethal drone strike on YouTube. Two cultural frames are identified—seeing the killing either as legitimate or illegitimate. The first audience framing views the uploader’s framing as legitimate by constructing (1) a moral response where death through drone strike is justified and the killed lives are constituted as unlivable, and (2) an aesthetic and affectual response where the death is enjoyed as drone porn. The second audience framing (1) contests the uploader’s frame and constitutes the lives as livable, and (2) responds to the contested kill with drone horror. The study shows the characteristics of war propaganda in a time pervaded by highly technologized warfare, by discourses of terrorism, and by new digital modes for communication.