‘What I thought university would be like … ’ close reading as collaborative performance

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article develops an account of an extracurricular reading group convened in a small theatre/performance department, consisting of postgraduate and honours students. The origins of the group in a formal seminar/class are discussed, including a shift in syllabus design based upon breadth of reading/content to one based upon depth, taking up the practice of reading as a core classroom activity. This activity is understood as a technē: an aided bringing forth of disclosure, revealing reading to be a constructive, temporal, embodied labour, rather than a cognitive function, involving simply the decoding or retrieval of meaning from written language. Drawing upon the reflections of participants in the reading group, the article documents the rich outcomes of such a practice, arguing that, notwithstanding the apparent costliness of such a model of pedagogy for university classes, the benefits are palpable, and worth arguing for.