Abstract
This study examines how four university-based literary scholars in the United States read literary texts. Findings suggest that the scholars used four related literary literacy orientations in their reading: They attended to their affective experiences with literature, built recursive interpretations of literature, contextualized literature, and recognized and managed literary complexity. As broad-level disciplinary ways of navigating literature, these literary literacy orientations included the scholars’ meaning-making practices as well as their beliefs, feelings, and attitudes about literature and making sense of it. Findings support and build upon existing scholarship on English disciplinary literacies and offer paths for further research.
Highlights
When asked about the role of literature in his field, literary scholar, Oscar said, “It’s the core of what English does.” Oscar’s words capture the centrality of texts in academic domains, such as the English language arts, and the sense that readers should “do” something with them
How do readers “do” literature? What do they “do” with it? And when should they “do” it? The production, interpretation, and use of literature plays an important role in English disciplinary literacy, in large part because it draws attention to “doing” literature in ways that align with disciplinary ways of working, thinking, and constructing meaning (Goldman et al, 2016)
Guided by the aforementioned research questions, this study explores issues related to English disciplinary literacy by attending to literary scholars’ literacy orientations, or broad-level disciplinary ways of experiencing and navigating literature that consist of scholars’ core beliefs, attitudes, feelings, and approaches to literary text
Summary
When asked about the role of literature in his field, literary scholar, Oscar said, “It’s the core of what English does.” Oscar’s words capture the centrality of texts in academic domains, such as the English language arts, and the sense that readers should “do” something with them. Much of the limited scholarship related to English disciplinary literacies has focused on identifying individual strategies literary scholars and other English experts use to make sense of texts This work has made important contributions to the field, disciplinary privileged ways of knowing in English have received sparse attention in the empirical literature (Rainey & Moje, 2012), leaving researchers, educators, and students with limited understanding of the range of disciplinary tools, practices, and experiences literary scholars use in their work with literary texts. From a disciplinary literacy perspective, this study explores how literary scholars “do” literature by looking closely at the way four university-based literary researchers, theorists, and practitioners in the United States construct meaning of literary texts. The following questions operationalize this focus: 1. What disciplinary situated approaches do literary scholars use to read literature?
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