Wednesday 25th May 2:00 – 3:30 pm BST

The Bookselling Research Network is pleased to announce its next event. This round table will discuss the financial business dimension of a bookstore in tandem with its social dimension as the site for networked communities. While the bookstore’s assets may generate revenue, they have other outputs from other ‘collaterals’, such as their communities of readers and end users, with the possibility that both might contribute to a much wider shared prosperity. In short, the panel participants will ask from their varied standpoints, whether there are good reasons to think of the otherwise separate domains of cultural politics and economics together as a networked political economy? 

The table comprises 3 x 10-15 minute presentations, with general discussion and questions to follow.

Our panellists are

Dr Simon Frost. Bournemouth University. https://staffprofiles.bournemouth.ac.uk/display/sfrost See Reading, Wanting and Broken EconomicsA Twenty-First-Century Study of Readers and Bookshops in Southampton Around 1900.  N.Y.:  SUNY Press, 2021.

Prof. Corinna Norrick-Rühl. University of Münster: https://www.uni-muenster.de/Anglistik/bookstudies/team/prof.dr.norrick-ruehl.html See The Novel as Network: Forms, Ideas, Commodities. Cham: Palgrave, 2020 (co-edited with Tim Lanzendörfer); see also Bookshelves in the Age of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Cham: Palgrave, forthcoming (co-edited with Shafquat Towheed).

Dr Ryan Raffaelli. Harvard Business School: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/profile.aspx?facId=257292 See Reinventing Retail: The Novel Resurgence of Independent Bookstores, HBS working papers series, 2020.

After the panel talks, the second part of the event will be an open discussion on these themes and an opportunity to identify areas for further research and collaboration.

This event will take place on Zoom and there is no charge for attendance. Please register here: https://forms.office.com/r/KX1R52Kthj

By Sofie Roberts

Sofie Roberts, Graduate Assistant for the BRN. Sofie is a final year PhD student at Bangor University, researching indigenous Welsh Cinema, and has a First-Class Honours undergraduate degree in English Literature with Film Studies gained at Bangor University. Sofie has nine years' experience working in academic institutions in roles involving working closely with businesses, networks, and industry. Sofie is from the foothills of Snowdonia and is a first language Welsh speaker.