Reading Across Worlds Transnational Book Groups and the Reception of
Combining sustained empirical analysis of reading group conversations with four case studies of classic and contemporary novels: Things Fall Apart, White Teeth, Brick Lane and Small Island, this book pursues what can be gained through a comparative approa
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Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Alberta - PalgraveConnect - 2014-12-30
‘What a good read! Or is that because I’m an academic reader? A book that crosses so many important boundaries, including lay and professional readers, readership across national, social and cultural boundaries, genres, and ethnicities. An exemplary interdisciplinary study especially for those in literary, postcolonial and discourse studies.’ – Professor Geoff Hall, University of Nottingham Ningbo, China. ‘This is an exemplary study of how discussion of books provides an opportunity for people to negotiate and articulate their own perspectives on class, race and community. It shows categorically that empirical approaches to studying reading behaviour – assuming what readers say is self-evidently meaningful – are of limited use, and that the assumption that professional and non-professional readers behave significantly differently is to be seriously queried as well. It should be an essential resource for the study of reading practices.’ – Sarah Brouillette, Carleton University, Canada.
10.1057/9781137276407 - Reading Across Worlds, James Procter and Bethan Benwell
Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Alberta - PalgraveConnect - 2014-12-30
‘Among the thorniest challenges in the seething subject area of book history is how meaningfully to account for the mercurial act of reading. Who reads what, when, where and how, and what do they make of their reading? These questions are especially pertinent in today’s world in which diverse texts by authors from a plethora of backgrounds encounter a multiplicity of readers, who may possess much – or very little – experience of the worlds being described. By concentrating on the vocal reactions to a swathe of post-colonial texts by participants in book clubs, Procter and Benwell bypass the over-confident generalisations of the theorists and present in their place a panorama of active and meaningful response. On the cusp of several sub-disciplines – response theory, post-colonial studies, cultural demography – the result is as exhilarating as it is revealing. Book history will never be quite the same again.’ – Professor Robert Fraser, Open University, UK.
10.1057/9781137276407 - Reading Across Worlds, James Procter and Bethan Benwell
Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Alberta - PalgraveConnect - 2014-12-30
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New Directions in Book History
As a vital field of scholarship, book history has now reached a stage of maturity where its early work can be reassessed and built upon. That is the goal of New Directions in Book History. This series will publish monographs in English that employ advanced methods and open up new frontiers in research, written by younger, mid-career, and senior scholars. Its scope is global, extending to the Western and non-Western worlds and to all historical periods from antiquity to the 21st century, including studies of scri
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