The Ethnography of Reading

This course approaches reading as a socio-cultural activity and considers recent ethnographic work on reading practices in different educational settings, communities, and historical epochs. By considering how reading is differently conceived and realized in a wide range of contexts, this course will shed light on reading as a historically contingent, ideologically shaped, and socio-culturally organized practice. More specifically, this course has a twofold aim: 1) to introduce students to recent ethnographic research on reading practices; 2) to familiarize them with ethnographic methodology. To this scope, in addition to reading exemplary studies of reading practices, students will also conduct a small-scale ethnographic research project in settings of their choice."