Reading around the text: On the diversity of reading practices in the new popular literary culture

Abstract

This article argues for an increased focus within literature didactics on the wide range of reading practices available both within and outside the educational system. One way to achieve this is to drastically shift focus, to concentrate not only on the act of reading, reading strategies and reading types, but on reading practices, as multifaceted offerings. This open, somewhat tentative line of inquiry is thus as follows: What does it mean to read around the text (a concept borrowed from Italo Calvino)? This formulation of the question forces us to take seriously the framework of reading and other factors, which tend to be marginalized. These factors can include the location of the reader when reading, the text as a physical object, other people, activities and artefacts which become important in reading practices. Exploring the diversity of reading practices entails several methods: investigating reading practices available outside the educational system; viewing individual reading practices as a multitude of complex entities of which text interpretation is only one; and increasing the intersectional perspective on reading.