135055 VO Social History of Literature (VO): History of Reading: Overview and Challenges (2022W)

The history of reading touches upon many disciplines and problems. From the perspective of literary scholarship, we take a look at contexts and meanings of e.g. reading scenes in texts and images, documents about book ownership, marginalia, sources on the book market and other literary institutions. With a view to literary reception between written text and oral transmission, we are also concerned with questions of reading for oneself, being read to and listening. In addition, we consider gendered aspects of reading, differences from an international perspective and the creative interaction with literary text, e.g. in fanfiction and fandom.

Every week, we will consider a topic based on a practical example. Background information will be provided beforehand. In the classroom, we will focus on the discussion of theoretical and practical difficulties.

Goals:
- You are able to critically reflect on a major field of literary scholarship
- You are familiar with central research concepts of (the history of) reading
- You know about certain practical limits of empirical and source-based scholarship