Introduction

Premised upon an understanding of literature and sociology as inter-animating and highly productive discursive fields and an assumption that the historical excavation of their shared period of professionalization will yield an especially rich and varied lode of conceptual ore, the introduction challenges scholars and students alike to revisit the interdisciplinary field of sociology and literary studies in more complexly inflected ways. After proposing a prepositional taxonomy with which to categorize present and future work, Maria K. Bachman and Albert D. Pionke provide a history of sociology in Britain from the term’s invention in 1838 through the discipline’s institutionalization in 1907. They then survey key methodological and theoretical intersections between literature and sociology from the middle of the nineteenth century through the beginning of the twenty-first century. The introduction ends with a preview of the essays to follow.