Researching literary reading as social practice

2009 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 219-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Allington ◽  
Joan Swann
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Cultural Sociology ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Literary Reading ◽  
Language And Literature ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many

This article first discusses ‘the reader’ as generally conceived within literary studies (including stylistics), grounding its claims with an empirical analysis of articles published in Language and Literature from 2004 to 2008. It then surveys the many ways in which real readers have been empirically investigated within cultural studies, the history of reading, and cultural sociology. Lastly, it introduces the remaining papers in this special issue as contributions to the study of language and literature.

Afterword Uncertain trajectories and refigured social worlds: the image entourage and other practices of digital and social media photography

Africa ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 89 (2) ◽  
pp. 323-328
Author(s):  
Corinne A. Kratz
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Social Worlds ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Important Work ◽  
Photographic Images ◽  
The World ◽  
The Many ◽  
East West

Drawn from East, West, Central and Southern Africa, the case studies in this special issue build on several decades of important work on photography in Africa. That work has examined colonial photography and postcards, studio work from colonial times to the present, activist photography, photojournalism, and artists who work with photographic images. It has addressed issues of representation, portraiture, aesthetics, self-fashioning, identities, power and status, modernities and materiality, the roles of photographs in governance and everyday politics, and the many histories and modes of social practice around making, showing, viewing, exchanging, manipulating, reproducing, circulating and archiving photographic images. Yet these articles push such issues and topics in exciting directions by addressing new photographic circumstances emerging throughout the world, initiated through new media's technological shifts and possibilities. In Africa, this has fuelled a range of transformations over the last fifteen years or so, transformations that are still unfolding. As the articles show, digital images, mobile phone cameras and social media (also accessed via phone) constitute the potent triad that has set off these transformations.

scholarly journals Perkembangan Teori Sastra (Suatu Pengantar)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felta Lafamane
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Literary Theory ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Literary Reading ◽  
Philosophical Thinking ◽  
Human Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
Practical Nature

AbstractNormatively, literary studies are divided into several fields, namely literary theory, literary history, literary criticism, comparative literature and literary studies. Literary theory studies people's views of literature. Literary history seeks to compile and study literary works as part of the process of intellectual history in one society. The history of literary theory can be seen as part of philosophical thinking because the history of literary theory itself is the same as the history of human thought towards art or literary objects which emphasize the more practical nature of the translation of concepts. Literary theory itself can essentially be equated with the science of beauty or aesthetics. Science and theory are certainly one different thing. With such an assumption, writing the history of literary theory is the same as writing aesthetic history in the field of literary arts. However, the history of the theory needs to be known and understood so that there are no mistakes in thinking about these two things. Literary theory itself has various meanings along with the paradigm it carries. Literary theory is defined as a set of ideas and methods used to practice literary reading. Literary theory is also interpreted as a way or step to understand literature. The views in literary theory also experience changes along with the development of human thinking.Keyword: development, literary theory, history, literature

scholarly journals The Monobloc Chair: Democratising the Practice of Sitting

Res Mobilis ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 3-18
Author(s):  
Carsten Kullmann
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Multiple Meanings ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Middle Ages

This article examines the cultural history of chairs to understand the many meanings the Monobloc can acquire. The history of chairs is traced from post nomadic culture through the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment period and the French Revolution. Subsequently, I will examine the Monobloc from a Cultural Studies perspective and demonstrate how its unique characteristics allow multiple meanings, which are always dependent on context and discourse. Thus, the Monobloc becomes an utterly democratic symbol of popular culture that can be appropriated for any use.

scholarly journals The Past and its Possibilities in Nahḍa Scholarship

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 265-287
Author(s):  
Feras Krimsti ◽  
John-Paul Ghobrial
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Record Keeping ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Heritage ◽  
The Many ◽  
Historical Reflection ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract This introduction to the special issue “The Past and its Possibilities in Nahḍa Scholarship” reflects on the role of the past in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century nahḍa discourse. It argues that historical reflection played a pivotal role in a number of scholarly disciplines besides the discipline of history, notably philosophy and logic, grammar and lexicography, linguistics, philology, and adab. Nahḍawīs reflected on continuities with the past, the genealogies of their present, and the role of history in determining their future. The introduction of print gave new impulses to the engagement with the historical heritage. We argue for a history of the nahḍa as a de-centred history of possibilities that recovers a wider circle of scholars and intellectuals and their multiple and overlapping local and global audiences. Such a history can also shed light on the many ways in which historical reflection, record-keeping practices, and confessional, sectarian, or communalist agendas are entwined.

scholarly journals Degree and Related Phenomena in the History of English: Evidence of Usage and Pathways of Change

2020 ◽  
pp. 007542422096977
Author(s):  
Claudia Claridge ◽  
Merja Kytö
Keyword(s):  
Special Issue ◽  
Historical Sociolinguistics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Individual Contributions ◽  
Introductory Paper ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Individual

This introductory paper sets the scene for the present double special issue on degree phenomena. Besides introducing the individual contributions, it positions degree in the overlapping fields of intensity, focus and emphasis. It outlines the wide-ranging means of expressing degree, their possible categorizations, as well as the many-fold uses of intensification with respect to involvement, politeness, evaluation, emotive expression and persuasion. It also decribes the many angles from which degree features have been studied as extending across, e.g., (historical) sociolinguistics, (historical) pragmatics, and grammaticalization.

scholarly journals (Post)Modern Apocrypha as an Epiphany of Sense (on the Basis of Bulgarian Literary Biblical Paraphrases)

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 35-48
Author(s):  
Ewelina Drzewiecka
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Positive Response ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Sense Making ◽  
History Of ◽  
Poetic Expression ◽  
Individual Interpretation

The paper is devoted to the author’s concept of modern apocrypha in the context of the two main tendencies of (Post)modernity: unmasking and paraphrasing. On the basis of the literary paraphrases of the Evangelical story, found in the Bulgarian (Post)Modern literary, there is shown a hermeneutic passage from “apocrypha as a literary mystification” (“literary apocrypha”), i.e. a concept often applied in literary studies, to “apocrypha as an epiphany of sense”, i.e. a concept which can be useful in cultural studies and in history of ideas. It is suggested that in the light of the postsecular thought, being an individual interpretation of the canon, the (Post)Modern apocrypha has a great epiphanic potential, which means that hiding minority truths, it reveals in fact some crucial, and crypto-theological, problems of the present. Drawing the axiological difference between “the unmasking apocrypha” (pseudo-gospel) and “the paraphrasing apocrypha” (epiphany of sense), the author claims that only the last one does actually incarnate Charles Taylor’s ideal of the authentic (and poetic) expression (of will), which helps in establishing an individual sense-making horizon as a positive response to the “heretical imperative” of (Post)Modernity.

Navigating normativities: Gender and sexuality in text and talk

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 481-489 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kira Hall ◽  
Erez Levon ◽  
Tommaso M. Milani
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Queer Theory ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Sexuality Research ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Initial Attempt ◽  
Biannual Meeting

This special issue was born out of a conversation initiated at a panel organized by two of us at the ninth biannual meeting of the International Gender and Language Association (IGALA), held at City University of Hong Kong in May 2016. The principal goal of the panel was to stimulate an academic discussion on the role of normativity and antinormativity in language, gender, and sexuality research in response to a series of critical interventions in cultural studies regarding some of the tenets underpinning queer theory (see Wiegman 2012; Penney 2014; Wiegman & Wilson 2015). It was our belief that sociolinguistics—with its focus on situated interpretations of social practice—has much to contribute, both theoretically and empirically, to these debates within cultural studies. This special issue is an initial attempt at articulating what such a contribution would be.

Embodiment, Materiality, and Power. A Review Essay

2008 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 809-818 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter van der Veer
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
Human Action ◽  
The Self ◽  
Western Thought ◽  
European Expansion ◽  
Divine Intervention ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many ◽  
Ways Of Life

Theories of agency are central to any form of explanation or interpretation of human action in the social and behavioral sciences, including the study of history. In studies of religion, they appear to require even more reflection than usual, because of secular skepticism of religious understandings of agency, involving divine intervention or supra-human powers. The major problem with theories of agency is their immense range and complexity. They involve fundamental notions of emotions and intentions, of habits and social practice, of desire and passion, of passions and interests, of resistance and power, of freedom and un-freedom, of the distinction between subject and object, of interiority and exteriority. As such, they have complicated genealogies in different religious and philosophical traditions. Western philosophical traditions are among the many traditions that have wide-ranging theories about the self and agency and express them in a universalistic language.1 These universalistic claims are perhaps common, but the history of European expansion has implied a universalization of Western thought, so that despite its provincial origin Western thought informs both the understanding and the self-understanding of other societies. From the start, one of the tasks of anthropology and history has therefore been to critique universalistic assumptions about, for instance, agency, by examining other ways of life and traditions. Not only is universalism as such being questioned; the universalization of ideas is being critically analyzed.

scholarly journals Embodied Social Cognition and Comparative Literature

Poetics Today ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-186
Author(s):  
Lisa Zunshine
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Literature ◽  
Social Cognition ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
Cognitive Approaches ◽  
Cognitive Literary Studies ◽  
Social Mind

There is a growing sense among scholars working in cognitive literary studies that their assumptions and methodologies increasingly align them with another paradigmatically interdisciplinary field: comparative literature. This introduction to the special issue on cognitive approaches to comparative literature explores points of alignment between the two fields, outlining possible cognitivist interventions into debates that have been animating comparative literature, such as those concerning “universals,” politics of translatability (especially in the context of world literature), and practices of thinking across the boundaries of media. It discusses both fields’ indebtedness to cultural studies, as well as cognitive literary theorists’ commitment to historicizing and their sustained focus on the embodied social mind.

Reading “Race,” Writing, and Difference

PMLA ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 123 (5) ◽  
pp. 1534-1539
Author(s):  
Henry Louis Gates
Keyword(s):  
Literary Studies ◽  
University Of Chicago ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Critical Inquiry ◽  
History Of ◽  
The University ◽  
University Of Chicago Press

“Race,” Writing, and Difference was published as a special issue of critical inquiry in Autumn 1985 (12.1). Responses to the essays in the special issue appeared in the journal's autumn 1986 number (13.1). The University of Chicago Press published both parts as a book in 1986. Since then, it has become the best-selling book version of a special issue of Critical Inquiry in the history of that splendid publication. And I believe that this occurred because its contributions simultaneously reflected and defined a certain pivotal moment in the history of both literary studies and the larger discourse on race, bringing the two fields together in a way that had not been done before. At least, that was the goal of editing it in the first place.

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