Right and a genuine desire to fend off populist and right-wing extremist movements. The success of Aspects of the New Right-Wing Extremism is a denunciation of these newly powerful sociopolitical forces: archival readings, I argue, emerge as crucial
Books Are Boring! Books Are Fun!
Boys’ Polarized Perspectives on Reading
Laura Scholes
Boys’ underachievement in reading, compared to girls, is considered a significant international problem ( Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD] 2014 ). By 15 years of age girls outperform boys on reading in the Program for
The Postwar Schoolbook as a Material Artifact
Two Greek Reading Textbooks from 1944
Niki Sioki
In contrast to the countries of Western Europe, the end of the Second World War did not bring political restoration, economic recovery, or the emergence of a new social order to Greece. Subscribing to the view that the material form of books and their typography convey meaning, this article presents a comparative study of the design and production of a reading primer and a third-year reading textbook, both of which were published in a climate of political and social disorder. Drawing on surviving copies of the books, educational laws, teachers’ recollections, and archival material, this article examines the ways in which the sociopolitical environment and technological conditions of a publication affect the ways in which texts are shaped into book form.
In Journal of Educational Media, Memory, and Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2019
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 53–72
Literary Readings as Performance
On the Career of Contemporary Writers in the New Ireland
Helena Wulff
Drawing on an anthropological study of the social organisation of the world of Irish writers, this article investigates the literary reading as performance which has become central for the career and promotion of contemporary writers. How is the reading - live as well as recorded - constituted, and how is it experienced from the writer's point of view? The data are derived from participant observation and interviews at literary festivals and conferences, writers' retreats, book launches and more informal situations with writers, as well as from fiction and essays by the writers. For this article, I asked some of the writers to write short texts on the reading. It turned out that the frames of the reading as performance reach beyond the reading event, and also that a reading includes elements of risk, such as not attracting a big enough audience or performing badly. Finally, the article considers the changing role of the ethnographer.
In Anthropological Journal of European Cultures
- Published (Print):
- 01 Sep 2008
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 98–113
Suzan Hirsch
This paper reports on case studies spanning four consecutive years (2005-2008) focused on addressing and challenging Australian primary school boys’ disengagement with English, particularly reading, using an action research process informed by both quantitative and qualitative data. Primary participants were all male and ranged from 8 to 11 years of age. Boys were identified and selected for each case study based on the questionnaire and interview results from whole grade surveys of both males and females. The data results identified the boys with negative views of literacy and boys who identified reading as being a feminine activity, thereby narrowing their perceptions of masculinity. These boys were involved in a reading/mentoring program with high profile professional Rugby League players. The celebrity rugby league players were involved in ten weekly mentoring and reading sessions with male participants each year. These sessions focused on building positive male identity, shifting negative attitudes to reading and challenging negative stereotypes of both professional sportsmen and boys as readers. After each of the case studies, quantitative and qualitative data indicated a positive change in the participants’ attitudes towards reading as well as their perceived stereotypes of males as readers and increased involvement in voluntary reading.
The Cultural Divide
Book Reading as a Signifier of Boundaries among Co-Cultures in Israeli Society
Hanna Adoni and Hillel Nossek
This article investigates the function of book reading in a society consisting of a multiplicity of ethno-cultural communities, asking whether book reading functions as a unifying factor within each ethno-cultural community or as a dividing factor and as a signifier of boundaries between them. It is based on multiyear survey data among representative samples of Israeli urban adults (1970, 1990, 2001-2002, 2007, and 2011), focus groups, and analysis of bestseller lists (2001, 2002). The article demonstrates that book reading functions as a signifier of boundaries within Israeli society, namely between ethno-cultural co-cultures of veteran Jewish Israelis, Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union, and Israeli Arabs. This supports Morley and Robins's claim that cultural consumption may be a divisive factor between the co-cultures within nation-states.
Nurturing Romanian Socialists
Reading Primers Before, During and After the Second World War
Simona Szakács-Behling and Mihai Stelian Rusu
Drawing on a sample of children’s reading primers published between 1938 and 1953 in Romania, this article explores ways in which both the monarchic and the communist regimes used primary education to fashion political subjects before, during, and after the Second World War. Theoretically grounded in a sociological approach and empirically grounded in textual and visual thematic content analysis, the findings reveal significant semantic shifts in understandings of the “nation” in relation to internal and external anchors, including religion, monarchy, and work, but they also indicate important continuities relating to an ethos of political submission (toward God and king, or the party and the Soviet Union) and patriotic solidarity (with the Romanian Orthodox nation or the workers’ proletarian nation).
In Journal of Educational Media, Memory, and Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2019
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 97–117
Field Notes and Reading Notes
Studying with Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett in the 1990s
Nélia Dias
In this article, I reflect on the experience of attending Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s class Performance Studies Issues and Methods at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in the 1990s. Recalling the classes and field trips to events and sites in New York City, and the emphasis that she placed on reading texts and taking field notes, I consider the lessons I learned for performance studies, anthropology, and museums, and also for teaching, research, and scholarship in general. Why did this practice of taking notes from the field, from books in particular, and the note-taking practice in general, play such a central role in Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s teaching? The steady and consistent focus both on theory and on the observation of social practices was a means of opening up new spaces for theoretical analysis or for a “performed theory,” to use Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s term.
The Midrash: A Model for God's Voice in a Secular Society
A Jewish Perspective
Moshe Lavee
philosophical reflections. If not reading Midrashic texts, at least we should realise the lesson of the Midrash, in which the specific story of each text, each specific word and sound is of importance, and abstract conceptual thinking can only come into being in
Matthew C. Ally
Joseph S. Catalano, Reading Sartre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. 213pp., $25.99 (paperback) ISBN 978-0-521-15227-3; $85.00 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-521-76646-3
