readingS

McHoul, A. (1991) readingS. In: Baker, C. and Luke, A., (eds.) Towards a Critical Sociology of Reading Pedagogy: Papers of the XII World Congress on Reading. John Benjamins Publishing, Amsterdam, Holland, pp. 191-210.

Abstract

The theme of this paper is straightforward: it argues that there is no unified, prespecifiable thing or practice which counts always and only as reading. Put another way: it is always possible to defeat a definite and distinct boundary between a practice or thing called reading and its opposite, not-reading. That is to say: no one has much of a clue as to the specifiability of the domain of not-reading. Without its opposite a concept's meaning is at best problematic. This does not mean that everything can be reading and that when it is and isn't depends on unforeseeable matters