Reading Wroe: On the Biopoetics of Aldersons Functionalism
Brown Marketing Theory.2002; 2: 243-271
Stephen Brown
Available from: //mtq.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/2/3/243
Wroe Alderson (18981965) is generally considered to be one of the giants of post-war marketing scholarship, a titanic thinker who did much to legitimize the study of marketing theory and thought. He is also widely regarded as someonewho was incapable of communicating his ideas cogently. As Holbrook (2001: 37) unequivocally observes, here was a writer who could not express himself clearly to save his soul. The present article seeks to challenge this regrettable scholarly stereo-type by showing that Alderson was a gifted literary stylist whose reputation as aprodigious academician is partly attributable to his allegedly unreadable writing. It utilizes the tools and techniques of biopoetics, an emerging school of literary criticism, to provide a reflexive reading of Wroes published works. That is to say, it adopts a functionalist approach to functionalism by applying Aldersons concepts to himself.