Reading for Pleasure

What makes reading pleasurable, and how has reading for pleasure changed over time? How does a book devoured with relish in one era become flatly boring in the next? What makes a text easy or enthralling? This course examines practices of pleasure reading in Britain and the US from the eighteenth century through the present. We'll take up acclaimed favorites and also texts disparaged as vapid, addictive, or corrupting. Testing out on our own sensibilities works savored eagerly by readers in the past, we'll observe how changes in technology and access to education shape reception. As we sample page-turners, smut, and trash, we'll examine how texts migrate in and out of those classifications. We'll conclude the term by considering pleasure reading in our own moment, bringing historical perspective to the current outcry about waning attention and reading's decline.