1. Reading Interests of Adults
Image credit: Victor GAD
Marija Dalbello
Reading Interests of Adults
The Structure
of Genre
Rutgers
School of Communication and Information

2. Introduction _______________________________________
Genre construction - within and outside texts themselves
Genre construction- pragmatics and semantics
Crossovers - challenging boundaries
Genres call for lateral reading
Do genres exist, and are they definable?

3. Overview _______________________________________
Introduction to genre approach
Genre debates
Realist - Nominalist arguments
Aesthetics of identity (genres) | difference (literature)
Genre categorization
Relevant concepts and theories
Synthesis
Defining elements in the study of genre
How to study genre as a form of social interaction
Current approaches to the study of genre
Precepts for the study of genre
From semantics to pragmatics

4. Genre debates _______________________________________
Genre = type entity, applicable across a body of works
Realism - universals of genre exist
Nominalism - only particulars are real
Aesthetics of identity (genres)
Aesthetics of difference (literature)
Can genre be reduced to formula?

5. Relevant concepts and theories _______________________________________
What makes up a genre?
Syntagmatic - paradigmatic elements
Intertextuality
Archetypal connection
Genres & ideologies
Uses and gratifications
Methodologies of genre study (13 approaches)

6. _______________________________________
Defining elements in the study of genre
_______________________________________
By the fact that genre is a social form and therefore:
is a means of socialization of communities and individuals in a
particular type of text and literacy
and exists only in the interpretive space constructed by the
real readers
By the fact that genre is a historical and political construct and therefore:
reflects the power relations of groups to mainstream values
reflects transformations over time in terms of which groups choose
this genre or abandon it (self-organizing nature of genre reading)
By the fact that genre is a symbolic space and therefore:
may exist in different manifestations of visible language (mediated in print, electronic format)

7. _______________________________________
Defining elements in the study of genre
_______________________________________
For all these reasons:
genre as social force (organizing individuals)
genre as symbolic space (language + visible form)
genre as impact of historical and political context
the study of genre is in fact a study of textual
communities and their interactions and
interpretive behaviors in the process of reading
audience research based on genre exemplified by
Janice Radway’s study of the romance readers
comes closest to a model for the study of genre
fiction

8. _______________________________________
Genres, interpretive communities, and social
relevance of texts
_______________________________________
“Meaning of texts is constructed from textual materials by a
reader who operates not alone and subjectively but according
to assumptions and strategies that she or he has adopted by
virtue of prior participation in specific interpretive community.”
(Radway 1984, 243)

9. _______________________________________
Study of genre as form of social interaction
_______________________________________
Positioning the study of genre in terms of: reading events, reading practices over a period of time
“Units” of study: individual reader, some form of institutionalized reading practices such as reading clubs, reading groups organized online
Methodologies for the study of readers' interpretations of genre:
behaviors implying physical interactions with the texts
interactions among the readers by studying reading clubs and organized reading communities
how readers interpret texts within their life-worlds as form of social action

10. Current approaches to the study of genre
_______________________________________
Structure
Context
Appropriation

11. _______________________________________
Current approaches to the study of genre Structural
_______________________________________
Text itself is object of study (define characteristics of structure: plot, textual forms that add up to a genre)
Authorial intent: relies on the concept of implied reader to explain genre conventions in terms of objectively recognizable traits (Eco)
Protocols for reading embedded in the text itself (Scholes)
Purpose of structural approach: design of classificatory models for categorization of genres

12. _______________________________________
Current approaches to the study of genre Contextual
_______________________________________
Book historians focused on infrastructures to reveal how genres are distributed, manufactured, and the study of the construction of genre through publishing infrastructure
Studies of readership and trends in audience transformation (objective evidence of reading as related to the context of production, distribution and the book trade)
Common reader - historically constructed generalized reader

13. _______________________________________
Current approaches to the study of genre Appropriation
_______________________________________
Genre as a subjective entity the reality of which is formed through a reader(s) interpretation
Object of study is the reader as real person in context, networks of readers, and reading events and practices
Originally inspired by reader-response
Inverts the paradigm of the structure of text as subordinate to the construction of text at the point of reading
No boundaries between media (convergence culture)

14. _______________________________________
Precepts for the study of genre
_______________________________________
Need for localization (time, space, community, national spaces)
Need for interpretation of historical / transformational aspects of genre
Need to study literary as cultural text (dramas, narratives)

15. Conclusion _______________________________________
Reading - interpretation of individual texts
Genre study
Recognizing structures and formulas to relate individual texts to their genres
Relating genres to society and culture in general
Social and cultural aspects of reading emphasized