In this section you will find announcements and links to virtual and traditional conferences organized
by READCHINA.
Practices of Reading in the People’s Republic of China
READCHINA Virtual Lecture Series (Winter 2020/2021)
Research into literary and intellectual life often focuses on
analyses of texts and their production. The reader, practices of reading and the meanings and
interpretations that (ordinary) readers arrive at very often are missing from the picture. This
lecture series aims at filling this gap in research by focusing on practices of reading in the
People’s Republic of China, addressing, among others, the following questions:
How do individuals, or groups of individuals, adapt to, oppose or appropriate official politics
by creating their own, private politics of reading?
In how far is (or was) reading an individual or a group activity, a private or public
undertaking?
Where are (or were) practices of reading situated within a triangle made up of the poles of
leisure, mandatory and forbidden reading?
How open or clandestine are (or were) practices of reading, are (or were) they legal or illegal?
In how far is (or was) reading employed as a means of distinction?
In how far does this relate back to the ways that texts are written, distributed, marketed, and
interpreted officially?
When reading becomes part of official policies, what happens to the everyday lives of readers?
How do different media, different materiality of reading materials impact on reading practices
and on the interpretation thereof?
Registration: All presentations will be hosted through zoom. For a link for the series,
please contact us via email to Eve Yi Lin at readchinalectureseries@gmail.com or use the 'Contact'
form at the bottom of this page.
