Citizen Reader

Dates
Saturday 1 June 2013 (09:00-10:00)

Dr Danielle Fuller will discuss why TV book clubs like ‘Richard & Judy’s Book Club’ and city-wide reading events like ‘Liverpool Reads’ are so popular with keen readers at her talk on Saturday 1 June at 9am. 

The fun of sharing reading with strangers and the opportunity to explore ideas in public are among the pleasures that participants derive from these mass reading events. The promise of belonging to some kind of community – however briefly – is an especially powerful attraction for many readers.

Drawing upon examples of large-scale reading events from the UK and North America, Dr Fuller will examine how and why contemporary readers come together to share reading as ‘citizen readers.’

This talk is derived from Dr Fuller’s research project “Beyond the Book: Mass Reading Events and Contemporary Cultures of Reading in the UK, USA and Canada” - an ambitious interdisciplinary trans-Atlantic investigation of shared reading events. Funded for 3 years by the AHRC (2005-8) and undertaken in collaboration with DeNel Rehberg Sedo (Mount Saint Vincent University, Canada), a communications scholar with expertise on book groups. Please see the Beyond the Book website for details of articles, book chapters, podcasts, resources and more information. www.beyondthebookproject.org

Tickets for this talk, and other talks featuring in the Birmingham Speakers at Hay series, are available directly from the Hay Festival.