This book showcases recent work about reading and books in sociology and the humanities across the globe. From different standpoints and within the broad perspectives within the cultural sociology of reading, the eighteen chapters examine a range of reading practices, genres, types of texts, and reading spaces. They cover the Anglophone area of the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia; the transnational, multilingual space constituted by the readership of the Colombian novel One Hundred Years of Solitude; nineteenth-century Chile; twentieth-century Czech Republic; twentieth century Swahili readings in East Africa; contemporary Iran; and China during the cultural revolution and the post-Mao period. The chapters contribute to current debates about the valuation of literature and the role of cultural intermediaries; the iconic properties of textual objects and of the practice of reading itself; how reading supports personal, social and political reflection;bookstores as spaces for sociability and the interplay of high and commercial cultures; the political uses of reading for nation-building and propaganda, and the dangers and gratifications of reading under repression. In line with the cultural sociology of reading's focus on meaning, materiality and emotion, this book explores the existential, ethical and political consequences of reading in specific locations and historical moments.

Provides a study of the social practice of reading Examines the practice of reading in a variety of global contexts Outlines the theoretical components and subsequent empirical investigations of the cultural sociology of reading

Autorentext

María Angélica Thumala Olave is Lecturer in Global Sociology at the University of Edinburgh, UK. Her recent research explores the personal and political significance of reading and books in Latin America and the UK.

Inhalt

Introduction María Angélica Thumala Olave.- Part I. The project of a cultural sociology of reading .- Chapter 1. Reading matters. A cultural sociology of reading María Angélica Thumala Olave.- Part II. Reading, books and texts as iconic experience .- Chapter 2. The Felt Value of Reading Zines Ash Watson and Andy Bennett.- Chapter 3. Between self and other: Anäis Nin's transformative erotics Jessica Widner.- Chapter 4. Knowing through Feeling: The Aesthetic Structure of a Novel and the Iconic Experience of Reading Jan Vâna.- Chapter 5. Book love. A cultural sociological interpretation of the attachment to books María Angélica Thumala Olave.- Part III. Literary value, evaluation and cultural intermediaries .- Chapter 6. Spatial Reading: Evaluative Frameworks and the Making of Literary Authority Günther Leypoldt.- Chapter 7. Readers and Reviewers: A Symbiotic Knot Phillipa Chong.- Chapter 8. The Courage to Continue: Reading and Motivating Intellectual Labors at University Presses Joshua Silver.- Chapter 9. Reviewing Strategies and the Normalization of Uncertain Texts Álvaro Santana Acuña.- Chapter 10. Customer reviews of 'highbrow' literature: a comparative reception study of The Inheritance of Loss and The White Tiger Daniel Allington.- Part IV. Bookshops, sociability and the interplay of high and consumer culture .- Chapter 11. On the sociability of books for an ethics of modern individuality: Taking Georg Simmel to a provincial English independent bookshop Daniel R. Smith.- Chapter 12. The Cultural Biography of the 'Avant-Garde': An Intellectual Bookstore and Post-Mao China's High Culture Legacy Eve Y. Lin.- Part V. Reading the social and the aesthetic public sphere .- Chapter 13. The Politics of Happily-Ever-After: Romance Genre Fiction as Aesthetic Public Sphere Anna Michelson.- Chapter 14. Reading Literature, Reading People, and Reading Risk during the Chinese Cultural Revolution Eddy U.- Chapter 15. Living the Global Color Line: Book Interpretations in Kabul as Insights into Transnational Social Structures Syeda Masood.- Chapter 16. From normative reading to interfaces of reading: The functions of reading in Chinese literature and society Lena Henningsen.