The return of the reader? On the rediscovery of a category in literary studies

After an initial phase of literary theory formation in the 1960s that focused on the reader (e.g. Jauss, Iser, Warning, Riffaterre), reader-related approaches seemed to be outdated in the wake of theories such as deconstruction or discourse analysis. In recent years, however, the category of the reader (or the female reader) has increasingly come back into the focus of literary studies: be it with a historical-systematizing intention, be it with regard to theories of aesthetic experience or in the context of emotion research. In addition to qualitative reading research, which is often influenced by cognitive science and makes use of methods from psychology and neuroscience, quantitative-empirical approaches are also gaining influence. A summer school organized with the participation of Kassel aims to set further accents here, not least in the discussion between the philologies.

There is the possibility to participate in the digital lecture by Françoise Lavocat (Sorbonne) on 11.09.2020 at 09:30 via Zoom. The topic of her lecture is:

The difference between fact and fiction in the light of cognitive science and neuroscience, and the challenge of new media and new genres

https://cmb.hu-berlin.de/kalender/termin/sommerschule-rueckkehr-des-lesers/

You can receive the access data on request at jknobloch[at]uni-kassel[dot]de