Media in cultural context: popular readerships

Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 1.5 hours / session

This course is listed in Literature, Comparative Media Studies, and Women's and Gender Studies.

What is the history of popular reading in the Western world? How does widespread access to print relate to distinctions between highbrow and lowbrow culture, between good taste and bad judgment, and between men and women readers? This course will introduce students to the broad history of popular reading and to controversies about taste and gender that have characterized its development. Our grounding in historical material will help make sense of our main focus: recent developments in the theory and practice of reading, including fan-fiction, Oprah's book club, comics, hypertext, mass-market romance fiction, mega-chain bookstores, and reader response theory.

Your reports: niche romance audiences, and/or your own romance reading

Short paper on reading and social identity due

Your reports: What makes a bestseller?

Short paper on romance readers due

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