ENGL 681 A1: Reading and Popular Culture: Late 20th Century and Contemporary Book Cultures

D. Fuller

Why, in a digital age, does the reading of (printed) books and the existence of a ‘bookish culture’ still matter?

This course explores the material and ideological aspects of contemporary book and reading cultures, focussing on the social location and cultural function of book reading in the 21st century. Drawing upon contemporary case studies from Canada, the United States, Australia and the UK, we will also consider how and why ‘ordinary’ people read books, how the contemporary mass media frame reading as a form of popular culture and why these practices matter – politically, socially and culturally.

Students will be encouraged to develop their own research projects within and beyond the four themed units: Reading As A Social Practice; Reading as Popular Culture; Producing Readers; Readers and Digital Media. Within each unit we will examine a selection of theories, artefacts and practices that will allow us to investigate the meanings and formations that contemporary book cultures assume. Our texts and case studies will range across media, genres and nation-states. We will also read a selection of historical analyses by book historians and theoretical texts derived from cultural studies’ work on readers and about popular culture. Through hands-on activities (e.g. an in-class reading group) and mini-research tasks (e.g. observing readers in libraries and bookshops) we will ‘test’ both theories of and popular ideas about reading and book readers as well as interrogating our own reading practices.

Texts will include:
A Giller or GG short-listed or Canada Reads book available in paperback from 2020/1 prize lists

Theory and Criticism:
Pierre Bourdieu ‘The Forms of Capital.’ (1986)
Extracts from: John Frow Cultural Studies and Cultural Value. (1995)
Extracts from: Janice Radway A Feeling for Books: The Book-of-the-Month Club, Literary Taste, and Middle-Class Desire. (1997)
Selections from: Matthew Rubery and Leah Price (eds.) Further Reading (2020)

Online media will include:
Bookvlogs (e.g. Reader Skeeter)
Podcasts (e.g. Witch, Please)
Fanfiction (e.g. on Archive of Our Own and Wattpad)