Position: Reader in Bookselling

Email: e.muse@bangor.ac.uk

Skype: eben.muse

Twitter: ebenjmuse

Personal website: The Space of the Book

Phone: +44 (0)1248 388628

“A bookstore is one of the few places where all the cantankerous, conflicting, alluring voices of the world co-exist in peace and order and the avid reader is as free as a person can possibly be, because she is free to choose among them.” Jane Smiley’s oft-quoted description of the multitude of voices in a bookstore, and the freedom that complexity creates, echoes Doreen Massey’s description of “the chance of space”, a location where unexpected intersections, of people, ideas and cultures can create the opportunity for new connections and for action that is not restricted by pre-existing structures. This bookstore space can outwit the curator, the corporate chain, the academic and the bookseller, creating unexpected opportunities for action and change. As such, the bookstore as a meaningful location has historically been a meeting place for debate, planning and for action.

My research, The Space of Bookselling, examines physical bookstores and their digital counterparts as meaningful locations, a term John Agnew (Place and Politics, 1987) as “locale, location and, sense of place”. As a meaningful location, the bookstore, physical or digital, is a space created in a specific setting within a geographical and social context that has its own meaningful identity. The location and locale create a space that gathers elements and creates the potential for events. Osborne, in The Rise of the Modernist Bookshop, identified them as counter-spaces: “spaces that hijack dominant spaces and repurpose them to leisure or liberating ones”, spaces that “question or change the nature of that dominant space.” The Space of Bookselling looks at the evolution of these meaningful locations through interviews with booksellers in the UK and USA, corpus analysis of social and broadcast media text, and critical review of the representations of bookstores in film and literature, and historical studies of the inter-dependency between bookstore and community. The work has been presented at international conferences in the UK and United States, including SHARP, By the Book, and The Future Space of Bookselling. The Fantasy of the Bookstore (2022) explores these themes through a study of the bookstore novel.

I am interested in supervising postgraduate researchers in any aspect of the book trade, especially indie bookselling & publishing, artisanal publishing, book culture, or bookselling as a function of community.

2022

  • PublishedFantasies of the Bookstore
    Muse, E., 1 Jul 2022, London: Cambridge University Press. 98 p. (Elements in Publishing and Book Culture)
    Research output: Book/Report › Book › peer-review

2014

2012

  • PublishedEditorial
    Muse, E., 14 Sept 2012, In: Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds. 4, 2, p. 115-116
    Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

2011

2007

2024

2023

2022

  • Angerdd dros Siopau LlyfrauPassion for Bookstores

    28 Oct 2022

    Activity: Invited talk (Speaker)
  • Bookselling Research Network 2022 Annual Conference

    7 Sep 2022 – 8 Sep 2022

    Activity: Participation in Academic conference (Organiser)
  • SHARP 2022

    Roundtable: Bookish Women of the Book Trade

    15 Jul 2022

    Activity: Participation in Academic conference (Speaker)
  • SHARP 2022

    Roundtable: Preserving the power of the written word: Cambridge Elements

    and the role of short monographs in the humanities

    13 Jul 2022

    Activity: Participation in Academic conference (Speaker)
  • By the Book 7

    “That she existed in her own right” Evolving Representations of Woman Booksellers in the Bookstore Novel

    22 Jun 2022

    Activity: Participation in Academic conference (Speaker)
  • BU-IIA Funded Project: Mapping the spaces of bookselling

    We will develop a research proposal to fund the development of a geographically based mapping project which will elucidate a) the role of independent bookstores in sustaining their communities and the independent publishing field, and b) the factors (economic, political, policy, etc) that have impacted the sustainability of UK independent bookstores during the recent years of industry change. The project will use this process to identify future conditions needed to enable independent booksellers to thrive as economic and cultural agents in our communities. The results will provide an evidence-base for national/local policymakers and industry bodies to create innovative, sustainable models which maximize the benefits of indie booksellers and publishers for local communities and economies.

    Funding awarded through the Bangor University Innovation and Impact Award (Research Wales Innovation Funding). Value = £6,927

    4 May 2022 – 30 Apr 2023

    Activity: Other (Contributor)

2021

2020

  • Women in Publishing Symposium

    15 Feb 2020

    Activity: Participation in Academic conference (Organiser)
  • Bookselling Research Network (External organisation)

    This Network, international in scope but based in the UK, brings together booksellers, researchers, and associations to celebrate and explore the histories, practices, and cultures of bookselling, past, present and future. The Network helps facilitate practical training, research projects, events, and a living archive of bookselling-related information; it also works closely with organisations like the Booksellers Association and the Books Council of Wales to support strategic plans and encourage knowledge exchange initiatives. The Network is led by Dr Eben Muse (Bangor University, The Stephen Colclough Centre for the History and Culture of the Book) and Dr Samantha Rayner (UCL, The Centre for Publishing and the Bloomsbury CHAPTER), and supported by the Booksellers Association and the Books Council of Wales.

    2020 →

    Links:

    Activity: Membership of network (Chair)

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2012

2011

2007