JULIANE ROEMHILD: The pandemic may be officially over, but its effects continue to reverberate: One in three people feel lonely, and one in six experience severe loneliness and mental health services are more stretched than ever. It takes a certain amount of optimism to consider reading groups as an antidote to the seismic shock ofContinue reading “Shared Reading: A Cure for Loneliness?”
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Shared Reading: Connecting Through Stories
ANTONIA VOGLER: Shared Reading is a special form of book club. A ‘Reader Leader’ guides sessions in which short stories, book excerpts and poems are read aloud on site and discussed (Shared Reading, n.d.). The discussion focuses on personal feelings and associations with the text (rather than, for example, the author or period of theContinue reading “Shared Reading: Connecting Through Stories”
Fiction: the Social Brain Booster
JEAN-FRANÇOIS VERNAY: Fiction is not a simple story that we consume for entertainment. Because it competes with other forms of entertainment, including those with images that provide a more democratic pleasure, it is increasingly promoted for its ability to boost the social brain. At a time when the French Education Department is consolidating its ambitionsContinue reading “Fiction: the Social Brain Booster”
Afterlives
Ika Willis, University of Melbourne When my father died, we put him in the ground. When my father died, it was like a whole library burned down. Laurie Anderson, ‘World Without End’ I. Books were always the connection between my father and me. He read me J. D. Salinger’s short stories. He fed me WodehouseContinue reading “Afterlives”
Between the laboratory and the library: How to read reading research
EDSEL PARKE: After giving a presentation on the gist of my PhD at a recent empirical literary studies conference, I was challenged by one of the audience members about the distinction between the ‘experimentalist’ and ‘naturalistic’ strands I identified within reception studies. This surprised me a little, given that the person in question was aContinue reading “Between the laboratory and the library: How to read reading research”
Australian Reception Network 