1994/08/01 by Gary Alan Fine · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Social and Cultural Dynamics #Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice #Sports, Gender, and Society #Veblen good #Style (visual arts) #Interpretation (philosophy) #Sociology #Irony #Epistemology #Class (philosophy) #Writing style #Positive economics #Neoclassical economics #Philosophy #Linguistics #Literature #Economics
paper · doi:10.1111/j.1533-8525.1994.tb01739.x
openalex publication_date 1994/08/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2025/11/06
Social scientists have begun to appreciate the importance of style in academic discourse. Style and its evaluation, I argue, are not givens, but are created and negotiated by a body of readers, judging a text. To explain the process by which style comes to be known, I choose the case of Thorstein Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class, published in 1899. I demonstrate that style was always important in the interpretation of his work, and that this “classic” can be read as literature, scholarly discourse, humor, or poor writing—or a combination thereof. A consensus on the qualities of Veblen's style has never emerged. Focusing on claims emphasizing Veblen's irony, I suggest that an ironic interpretation is particularly likely when an author analyzes those with superior status.