Introduction: “On Literature In Cultural Studies” by John Frow
“On Literature in Cultural Studies” by John Frow first appeared in The Question of Literature, published in 2002 by Manchester University Press. In this pivotal essay, Frow interrogates the complex relationship between literature and cultural studies, tracing the historical divergence of the two disciplines and advocating for their reconciliation. The core argument centers on the notion that cultural studies, in its foundational rejection of traditional aesthetic disciplines, particularly literary studies, did not entirely discard literature itself but sought to challenge and reframe the normative value systems that underpinned it. Frow critically examines how the category of “the literary” emerges through reflexive, sociological, and aesthetic structures—exemplified through close readings of The Radetzky March, Don Quixote, Lost Illusions, and Frank O’Hara’s The Day Lady Died. These examples illustrate literature’s paradoxical status: both commodified and elevated, embedded in social regimes while resisting total institutional capture. Ultimately, Frow’s work is significant for literary theory because it shifts attention from intrinsic literary qualities to the regimes of value and interpretation that condition how literature is read and understood. This approach repositions literature as one cultural regime among many, not inherently privileged, yet uniquely equipped to interrogate the very frameworks that sustain cultural value. Frow’s nuanced reconceptualization challenges essentialist definitions of literature and reaffirms the importance of theoretically informed reading practices in both literary and cultural studies.
Summary of “On Literature In Cultural Studies” by John Frow
🔁 The Foundational Tension Between Cultural Studies and Literary Studies
📚 Cultural studies was born out of a deliberate rejection of traditional disciplines such as literary studies, film studies, and art history. Yet, as Frow clarifies, this rejection was not of the aesthetic object itself, but of the normative frameworks that governed its placement and value:
“It is important to be clear that this was a refusal not of the object itself… but of the normative discourses within which the object and its ‘placing’ were defined” (p. 44).
🎭 However, this strategic distance eventually became a limitation, as it occluded crucial discussions of value within cultural texts — including literature — which cultural studies set out to theorize.
📖 Three Modes of Literary Emergence
- 📘 Reflexive Fiction and Truth in Literature
Frow identifies epistemological reflexivity in works like The Radetzky March and Don Quixote, where literature reflects on itself through layers of truth and fiction.
“The narrative of a resistance to Literature has itself become a work of literature” (p. 45).
- 📰 The Corruption and Commodification of Literature
In Lost Illusions, literature appears within a sociological reflexivity, entangled in journalism, commodification, and industrial production.
“The literary… is torn between the two and whose defining character is its status, and its dissatisfaction with its status, as a thing to be bought and sold” (p. 47).
- 🎤 Lyric Memory and Epiphany in Poetry
Frank O’Hara’s The Day Lady Died presents lyrical emergence, where literature arises in a temporal rupture, transcending the mundane through memory and voice.
“The ‘emergence’ of the literary… is the effect of this shift of planes from the mundane to the epiphanic moment of memory” (p. 48).
⏳ Dual Temporality and Historical Value of the Literary
⚖️ Literature exists simultaneously as a historical institution and as a momentary event in reading. This creates a tension between canon formation and fleeting readerly experience.
“The concept of literary emergence… specifies a dual temporality: on the one hand… an act of reading; on the other… a structure of historical value” (p. 49).
📘 Frow challenges universal definitions of literature, noting that all such claims are normative and reflect institutionalized regimes of value rather than inherent qualities.
“Any attempt now to define the literary as a universal… fails to account for the particular institutional conditions of existence” (p. 49).
🏛️ The Literary Regime: Texts, Readers, and Institutions
🔧 Frow proposes the idea of a “literary regime”—a set of social and interpretive structures that assign value to texts and determine how they are read.
“The concept of regime shifts attention from an isolated and autonomous ‘reader’ and ‘text’ to the institutional frameworks which govern what counts as the literary” (p. 50).
📺 This regime is not superior to other cultural forms like film or television. Instead, it is simply one among many regimes of cultural value, shaped by relations, not essences.
“No special privilege attaches to a literary regime except insofar as such a privilege can be enforced by political means” (p. 51).
🔄 Reading as a Recursive and Relational Practice
🔍 Frow suggests we move away from fixed textual meanings and instead view reading as a dynamic practice, involving multiple layers of interpretive framing: from content to form, to technique, to institutional regimes.
“Textuality and its conditions of possibility are mutually constitutive and can be reconstructed only from each other” (p. 52).
🧠 Interpretation becomes a historical mediation, where meaning arises between the moment of writing and the moment of reception — not rooted in either alone.
“Any text which continues to be read… will in some sense not be the ‘same’ text” (p. 53).
🔄 Rethinking the Discipline of Literary Studies
🎓 Frow critiques the current state of literary studies as fragmented — divided between ethical, deconstructive, political, and bellettristic approaches — and lacking a unified theoretical core:
“In one sense, the discipline of literary studies is flourishing… in another, it has become lost in irrelevance” (p. 54).
🛠️ He advocates for a renewed literary pedagogy based not on canon or theory, but on a generalizable, reflective practice of reading that bridges literary and non-literary forms.
“It must be at once continuous with and richer than untutored practice… and be extrapolated from ‘literary’ texts to other discursive kinds” (p. 54).
⚡ The Ambivalence of Literary Emergence
🌀 Frow closes by noting that every instance of literary emergence simultaneously enacts and undermines the concept of literature itself. Literature, in this view, is inherently unstable, defined by the contradictions that animate it:
“These texts… can be taken as a figure for the institution of a reading that would at once display and displace the literary regime” (p. 55).
✅ In Summary:
John Frow’s essay is a critical reconfiguration of the boundaries and assumptions of literary studies. By analyzing how literature emerges across texts, regimes, and historical contexts, Frow opens the door to a relational, politically aware, and reflexive understanding of literature’s role within cultural studies.
Theoretical Terms/Concepts in “On Literature In Cultural Studies” by John Frow
| 🌟 Concept / Term | 📚 Explanation | 🔍 Reference / Quote |
| 🎭 Cultural Studies’ Foundational Refusal | Cultural studies began with a deliberate rejection of traditional literary aesthetics, not the objects (literature, film, etc.) themselves but the normative discourses that assigned them value. | “This was a refusal not of the object itself… but of the normative discourses within which the object and its ‘placing’ were defined” (p. 44). |
| 🔁 Emergence of the Literary | Frow identifies three “emergences” of literature—as epistemological reflexivity, sociological reflexivity, and lyrical temporality—moments when literature becomes aware of its own function. | “The ‘emergence’ of the literary… is not only a punctual event… but a repeated structure of thematized reflexive reference” (p. 45). |
| ⏳ Dual Temporality | Literature operates in two temporalities: as a transient reading event and as a historically stabilized institutional value. These often contradict each other. | “It specifies a dual temporality… as an act of reading… [and] as a structure of historical value” (p. 49). |
| 🏛️ Literary Regime | A central concept—the literary regime—is the set of institutional, semiotic, and social frameworks that determine what counts as “literature” and how it is read. | “To speak of a literary regime is to posit that it is one regime amongst others… existing in a relationship of overlap and difference” (p. 51). |
| 🌀 Regime of the Text | Borrowing from Marghescou, this refers to the semantic code that gives a text its meaning in opposition to its linguistic function. | “Only a regime… could give form to this virtuality, transform the linguistic form into information” (p. 50). |
| 🔄 Reflexivity | Literature often reflects on its own processes, becoming self-aware in its function. This is seen in Frow’s examples from Don Quixote, Lost Illusions, and O’Hara’s poem. | “The work becomes aware of itself as the illusion that the illusory world… also is” (Adorno in Frow, p. 46). |
| 🧩 Relational Reading | Reading is not about extracting fixed meanings, but about tracing relationships between text, context, and framing structures. Interpretation is historically and institutionally conditioned. | “Reading will… move from a focus on a ‘text’… to the relation between a text and the set of framing conditions that constitute its readability” (p. 52). |
| ❓ The Question of Value | Frow criticizes cultural studies for sidestepping the question of value, even though literature inherently provokes evaluative judgments. | “The very force of its initial refusal of the normative has become a problem… since it occludes those questions of value” (p. 44). |
| ⚖️ Relative Relativism | Cultural regimes aren’t absolutely distinct but overlap, contradict, and evolve. This avoids both essentialism and pure relativism. | “We must think in terms of a relative relativism… between formations which are internally differentiated and heterogeneous” (p. 51). |
| 🧠 Reading as Practice | Frow proposes reading not as decoding a text’s meaning, but as a structured social practice shaped by norms, institutions, and interpretive habits. | “What goes on in a good practice of reading… is the relation between a text and the set of framing conditions” (p. 52). |
Contribution of “On Literature In Cultural Studies” by John Frow to Literary Theory/Theories
📚 1. Poststructuralism & Reflexivity
🔍 Contribution: Frow extends poststructuralist ideas by exploring literature’s self-reflexive nature—its capacity to question and remake itself.
“The narrative of a resistance to Literature has itself become a work of literature” (p. 45).
🌐 Theoretical Tie: Builds on Paul de Man and poststructuralist thought, where language is unstable and meaning is deferred.
“The literary constitutes… a language aware of its own rhetorical status and its inherent liability to error” (p. 49).
🏛️ 2. Institutional Theory (Sociology of Literature)
📦 Contribution: Introduces the idea of the “literary regime”—institutions and social forces that define, categorize, and give value to literature.
“Texts and readings count as literary or nonliterary by virtue of protocols which govern this distinction” (p. 50).
🏛️ Theoretical Tie: Deepens Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory and Tony Bennett’s work on cultural institutions, showing how literary meaning is socially regulated.
🌀 3. Reader-Response Theory (Relational Reading)
👁️ Contribution: Frow reorients attention from the text itself to the relation between the reader, the text, and its framing conditions.
“Reading… moves from a focus on a ‘text’… to the relation between a text and the set of framing conditions” (p. 52).
📖 Theoretical Tie: Expands on Stanley Fish and Wolfgang Iser by emphasizing the historical and institutional embeddedness of interpretation.
⏳ 4. Historicism / New Historicism
📜 Contribution: Proposes that literature’s meaning is always subject to changing regimes of reception, contesting any fixed or timeless interpretation.
“Any text which continues to be read… will in some sense not be the ‘same’ text” (p. 53).
🧭 Theoretical Tie: Resonates with Stephen Greenblatt’s New Historicism in viewing literature as deeply entwined with historical conditions of both production and reception.
🧩 5. Cultural Studies / Anti-Canonism
🚫 Contribution: Argues against fetishizing the literary canon, calling instead for a theoretically aware and socially situated analysis of literature.
“The exclusion of the literary… was a strategic delimitation… but there is no reason… why this exclusion should continue” (p. 53).
📚 Theoretical Tie: Extends Stuart Hall’s cultural studies framework, encouraging integration of literary studies into the broader matrix of cultural regimes.
🧠 6. Critique of Universalism
🧱 Contribution: Refutes attempts to offer a unified, essentialist definition of literature by demonstrating its institutional and historical variability.
“Any attempt now to define the literary as a universal or unitary phenomenon… falls into the fetishism of a culture of social distinction” (p. 49).
📘 Theoretical Tie: Counters structuralist views (like Frye’s archetypes) by arguing for the pluralism and contingency of literary value.
🔧 7. Pedagogical Theory / Literary Education
🎓 Contribution: Reframes literary education as training in critical reading practices, not the transmission of timeless cultural value.
“What might count as useful knowledge… is less the imparting of systematic information than the teaching of a practice” (p. 54).
🛠️ Theoretical Tie: Contributes to critical pedagogy (e.g., Freire, Giroux), emphasizing interpretation as an empowering, reflective act.
⚖️ 8. Value Theory in Literature
📈 Contribution: Reopens the question of value in literature—not as eternal or intrinsic, but as socially and semiotically produced.
“The very force of its initial refusal of the normative has become a problem… it occludes those questions of value” (p. 44).
💬 Theoretical Tie: Challenges both formalism and radical relativism, offering a balanced, relational approach to literary valuation.
🧬 Summary
John Frow’s “On Literature in Cultural Studies” doesn’t simply intervene in literary theory—it restructures its foundation by:
- Breaking down the boundaries between disciplines
- Introducing the flexible but rigorous concept of regimes
- Centering historical, institutional, and relational dynamics in literary meaning
It is a call for theory after theory, where critical reflection and cultural embeddedness take priority over rigid categories and static canons.
Examples of Critiques Through “On Literature In Cultural Studies” by John Frow
| 📘 Literary Work | 🎭 Type of Critique (via Frow) | 🧠 Key Insight / Concept | 🔍 Reference / Quotation |
| 🇦🇹 Joseph Roth’s The Radetzky March | 🧩 Epistemological Reflexivity | Literature as layered fiction; history becomes narrative myth. Trotta’s anger reflects how literature replaces lived truth. | “The stability of the world, the power of the law, and the splendour of royalty are maintained by guile” (p. 45). |
| 🇪🇸 Cervantes’ Don Quixote | 🔄 Fiction vs. Fiction | Literature reflects on its own falsehood, creating an infinite loop of fictionalization. Quixote battles fictions within fictions. | “The narrative of a resistance to Literature has itself become a work of literature” (p. 45). |
| 🇫🇷 Balzac’s Lost Illusions | 🏭 Sociological Reflexivity / Commodification | Shows literature’s uneasy position within the capitalist publishing industry—caught between art and commerce. | “A writing… torn between the two… as a thing to be bought and sold” (p. 47). |
| 🇺🇸 Frank O’Hara’s The Day Lady Died | ⏳ Temporal Disruption / Lyric Emergence | The poem transitions from mundane modern life to an epiphanic memory of Billie Holiday, illustrating how literature opens new time-frames. | “The ‘emergence’… is the effect of this shift… from the book as packaged writing to the breathed authenticity of the voice” (p. 48). |
🔍 Summary:
| 📂 Frameworks Applied by Frow | 🧵 Seen In |
| 📘 Reflexivity (Text aware of its own fictionality) | Don Quixote, The Radetzky March |
| 🏛️ Institutional critique (Literature as product) | Lost Illusions |
| ⏳ Temporal layering (Memory & lyricism) | The Day Lady Died |
These critiques demonstrate Frow’s method of tracing how literature not only represents social and historical conditions but also performs and critiques its own status through institutional, commercial, and aesthetic lenses.
Criticism Against “On Literature In Cultural Studies” by John Frow
⚖️ 1. Relativism vs. Rigorous Criteria
📌 Criticism: Frow’s call for “relative relativism” may lead to a theoretical impasse where no stable criteria remain to distinguish meaningful from arbitrary interpretation.
His dismissal of universal literary value might be read as undermining normative critical judgment.
🔎 Why it matters: Without shared evaluative frameworks, literary criticism risks becoming purely contextual and losing its capacity to critique broader systems.
🌀 2. Vagueness in the “Literary Regime”
📌 Criticism: The term “literary regime”—while conceptually rich—is ontologically overloaded, blending institutional, textual, semiotic, and social dimensions without clear boundaries.
This may confuse rather than clarify how regimes function practically in shaping reading.
🔎 Why it matters: Readers may struggle to distinguish what counts as a regime versus broader cultural influence or personal interpretation.
🎯 3. Undervaluing the Aesthetic Dimension
📌 Criticism: By focusing on cultural and institutional framing, Frow potentially downplays the aesthetic and affective power of literature itself.
His emphasis on external regimes may neglect the formal innovations, beauty, or style of literary texts.
🔎 Why it matters: Many argue that literature’s unique value lies in its affective and stylistic power, not just its social embeddedness.
🧱 4. Risk of Disciplinary Dilution
📌 Criticism: Frow’s encouragement of interdisciplinary openness might inadvertently dissolve the specificity of literary studies into broader cultural studies.
“Literature” becomes just another “regime,” losing its traditional disciplinary coherence.
🔎 Why it matters: Some literary theorists fear this undermines the distinctive tools and methods of close reading, genre study, and formal analysis.
🗃️ 5. Abstract Overload and Accessibility
📌 Criticism: Frow’s language is dense and steeped in theoretical jargon, making the essay less accessible to non-specialists or students new to literary theory.
Terms like “hermeneutic bootstrapping” or “axiological regimes” can alienate readers unfamiliar with poststructuralist discourse.
🔎 Why it matters: For a piece partly about pedagogy and reading practices, the lack of clarity may hinder its impact in the classroom.
🧭 6. Limited Engagement with Non-Western Literatures
📌 Criticism: Frow’s analysis is heavily Euro-American, drawing examples only from Western canonical texts (Roth, Cervantes, Balzac, O’Hara).
This limits the scope of his claim that “literary value is institutionally constructed” across global cultural contexts.
🔎 Why it matters: A more inclusive global literary critique would enhance his argument about the variability of regimes across cultures.
🔍 7. Minimal Discussion of Reader Agency
📌 Criticism: While Frow critiques autonomous conceptions of the “reader,” he doesn’t give enough space to the lived experience and agency of actual readers.
His concept of the reader as a “function” within a regime may overlook how individuals interpret texts creatively or resist dominant regimes.
🔎 Why it matters: Ignoring reader subjectivity risks reducing reading to mere effects of institutional power.
🧠 Summary:
Frow’s essay is a seminal intervention in redefining the relationship between literary studies and cultural theory—but it also opens itself to critiques related to:
- theoretical overreach 🌀
- undervaluing form and aesthetics 🎨
- abstract language barriers 🧱
- Western-centrism 🌍
Representative Quotations from “On Literature In Cultural Studies” by John Frow with Explanation
| 🧠 Explanation | |
| “The stability of the world, the power of the law, and the splendour of royalty are maintained by guile.” (p. 45) | 📚 Literature is shown to uphold social and political systems through fiction and myth, not objective truth—as in The Radetzky March. |
| “The narrative of a resistance to Literature has itself become a work of literature.” (p. 45) | 🔁 Resistance to literature still operates within literature; reflexivity makes literature self-perpetuating and self-critical. |
| “The literary… is torn between… the transcendent stuff of poetry… and the mere corruption of journalism.” (p. 47) | ⚖️ Highlights the tension between idealistic and commercial forces in literature, especially in Lost Illusions. |
| “The ‘emergence’ of the literary… is the effect of this shift… from the book as packaged writing to the breathed authenticity of the voice.” (p. 48) | 💨 Emphasizes the affective, almost sacred moment when literature transcends its form—seen in O’Hara’s poem. |
| “It specifies a dual temporality:… as an act of reading;… as a structure of historical value.” (p. 49) | ⏳ Literature lives both in momentary readings and in historical frameworks; Frow bridges text and institution. |
| “Any attempt now to define the literary… fails to account for the particular institutional conditions of existence.” (p. 49) | 🏛️ Universal definitions of literature ignore the complex systems that create and sustain literary value. |
| “Texts and readings count as literary… by virtue of protocols… governing this distinction.” (p. 50) | 🔐 What’s considered “literature” is decided not by the text itself but by social and cultural rules—regimes. |
| “The literary regime has no reality beyond the shape it gives to acts of reading.” (p. 51) | 🌐 Literature doesn’t exist independently—only through how it is used, read, and interpreted socially. |
| “Reading… moves from a focus on a ‘text’… to the relation between a text and the set of framing conditions.” (p. 52) | 🔍 Urges a shift from close reading to relational reading, connecting text with its interpretive context. |
| “There is no reason of principle why this exclusion [of literature] should continue to be sustained.” (p. 53) | 🤝 A call for reconciling literary studies and cultural studies—literature should be part of cultural analysis. |
Suggested Readings: “On Literature In Cultural Studies” by John Frow
- Frow, John. “On Literature in Cultural Studies.” The Aesthetics of Cultural Studies (2005): 44-57.
- Birns, Nicholas. “Australian Literature in a Time of Winners and Losers.” Contemporary Australian Literature: A World Not Yet Dead, Sydney University Press, 2015, pp. 3–24. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt19qgddn.5. Accessed 10 Apr. 2025.
- Denham, Robert D., editor. “Essays, Articles, and Parts of Books.” The Reception of Northrop Frye, University of Toronto Press, 2021, pp. 23–470. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/j.ctv1x6778z.5. Accessed 10 Apr. 2025.
- Meyer-Lee, Robert J. “Toward a Theory and Practice of Literary Valuing.” New Literary History, vol. 46, no. 2, 2015, pp. 335–55. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24542764 Accessed 10 Apr. 2025.