Branding books across the ages : strategies and key concepts in literary branding / edited by Helleke van den Braber, Jeroen Dera, Jos Joosten and Maarten Steenmeijer.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

As marketing specialists know all too well, our experience of products is prefigured by brands: trademarks that identify a product and differentiate it from its competitors. This process of branding has hitherto gained little academic discussion in the field of literary studies. Literary authors and the texts they produce, though, are constantly 'branded': from the early modern period onwards, they have been both the object and the initiator of a complex marketing process. This book analyzes this branding process throughout the centuries, focusing on the case of the Netherlands. To what extent is our experience of Dutch literature prefigured by brands, and what role does branding play when introducing European authors in the Dutch literary field (or vice versa)? By answering these questions, the volume seeks to show how literary scholars can account for the phenomenon of branding.

Print version record.

Frontmatter -- Table of Contents -- Introduction -- Cultural Branding in the Early Modern Period -- Telling a Double Story -- A Hero and His History -- From Immorality to Immortality -- Allegories of Branding -- Branding or Excluding? -- Hugo Claus -- One Book's Brand is Another Book's Frame -- 'The Most Successful Writer of the Netherlands' -- Young Adults as Branded Readers -- Of Dust and Dollars -- 'This Is What We Share' -- The One Unforgivable Transgression? -- Branding the Open-minded Nation -- Against the Grain -- In Search of the Most Effective Way of Branding -- Index of Names

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