The Social Construction of Style: Thorstein Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class as Contested Text

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.