Practices and Politics of Reading in China

This book series focuses on practices and politics of reading in China. It researches the social conditions under which texts were and are read, what influence these texts and the respective contexts had and have on the lives of individuals, on social, political, intellectual and literary change in China, and on the modes of production, distribution and consumption of political messages, of literature and culture. Reading, here, is not “just” the content of the proposed interdisciplinary studies. Rather, reading functions as a methodological approach to Chinese society, politics, economics, intellectual life, literature and culture, including its global dimensions. Reading is understood broadly as the interaction with and reception of texts, including scriptural, visual and acoustic texts. Therefore, the book series offers studies – and invites submissions – which investigate the conditions, practices and impacts of reading in China with an emphasis on ordinary readers. Methodologically, thus, the series offers new perspectives: away from the established focus on authors or the political context and to the impact of texts or institutional matters on readers and audiences.