{"title":"Cultures of reading: Then and now","authors":"Wen Jin","doi":"10.1177/13678779231218396","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The political implications of reading practices have been a key concern in cultural studies since its beginning. Studying the process of reading, in various media and generic contexts, is crucial to understanding how cultural forces are coded in everyday experiences and to intervening effectively in these forces. I argue that studies of reading benefit significantly from the combination of sociological and phenomenological approaches. This mixed approach was visible from the earliest stages of cultural studies, but became a conscious development in recent work. Interdisciplinary attention to reading not only contributes to the methodological syncretism inherent in cultural studies, but is also a matter of political urgency. Many people around the world, including those in contemporary China, are confronted with affective challenges that cannot be tackled without intimate knowledge of how people are affected by reading.","PeriodicalId":47307,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":"25 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5000,"publicationDate":"2023-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Journal of Cultural Studies","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779231218396","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"CULTURAL STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The political implications of reading practices have been a key concern in cultural studies since its beginning. Studying the process of reading, in various media and generic contexts, is crucial to understanding how cultural forces are coded in everyday experiences and to intervening effectively in these forces. I argue that studies of reading benefit significantly from the combination of sociological and phenomenological approaches. This mixed approach was visible from the earliest stages of cultural studies, but became a conscious development in recent work. Interdisciplinary attention to reading not only contributes to the methodological syncretism inherent in cultural studies, but is also a matter of political urgency. Many people around the world, including those in contemporary China, are confronted with affective challenges that cannot be tackled without intimate knowledge of how people are affected by reading.
期刊介绍:
International Journal of Cultural Studies is committed to rethinking cultural practices, processes, texts and infrastructures beyond traditional national frameworks and regional biases. The journal publishes theoretical, empirical and historical analyses that interrogate what culture means, and what culture does, across global and local scales of power and action, diverse technologies and forms of mediation, and multiple dimensions of performance, experience and identity. Dedicated to theoretical and methodological innovation in cultural research, the journal is multidisciplinary in outlook, publishing relevant contributions that integrate approaches from the social sciences, humanities, information sciences and more. International Journal of Cultural Studies publishes original research articles. The journal gives preference to papers that extend existing theory or generate new theory through interpretive engagement with empirical cases. Papers based on single country case-studies should clearly indicate and develop the broader relevance of their analyses for an international readership. The journal does not publish close readings of single texts; but it does consider critical, contextualised readings that similarly indicate and develop the broader relevance of their analyses to the field. International Journal of Cultural Studies regularly publishes special issues on urgent questions in the field as well as on specific regions, industries and practices.