Cultures of reading: Then and now

The political implications of reading practices have been a key concern in cultural studies since its beginning. Studying the process of reading, in various media and generic contexts, is crucial to understanding how cultural forces are coded in everyday experiences and to intervening effectively in these forces. I argue that studies of reading benefit significantly from the combination of sociological and phenomenological approaches. This mixed approach was visible from the earliest stages of cultural studies, but became a conscious development in recent work. Interdisciplinary attention to reading not only contributes to the methodological syncretism inherent in cultural studies, but is also a matter of political urgency. Many people around the world, including those in contemporary China, are confronted with affective challenges that cannot be tackled without intimate knowledge of how people are affected by reading.