This edited volume examines what the classic text The Ethnography of Reading (Boyarin ed., 1993), and the diverse ethnographies of reading it helped inspire, can offer contemporary scholars interested in understanding the place of reading in social life. The Ethnography of Reading at Thirty brings together new research and critical reflections from an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars who have kept their ears tuned to the voices in and around the texts they encountered and constructed in the process of bringing the ethnography of reading into the twenty-first century. Rather than operating from universalist assumptions about how people interact with and make meaning from written texts, each of the present contributors draw in one way or another on the theoretical, methodological, and creative legacies of The Ethnography of Reading. Under the broad umbrella of ethnographic reader studies, they collectively explore new relations between texts, social imagination, and social action.

Writing, the subject of much innovative scholarship in recent years, is only half of what we call literacy. The other half, reading, now finally receives its due in these groundbreaking essays by a distinguished group of anthropologists and literary scholars. The essays move well beyond the simple rubric of "literacy" in its traditional sense of evolutionary advancement from oral to written communication. Some investigate reading in exotically cross-cultural contexts. Some analyze the long historical transformation of reading in the West from a collective, oral practice to the private, silent one it is today, while others demonstrate that in certain Western contexts reading is still very much a social activity. The reading situations described here range from Anglo-Saxon England to contemporary Indonesia, from ancient Israel to a Kashaya Pomo Indian reservation. Filled with insights that erase the line between orality and textuality, this collection will attract a broad readership in anthropology, literature, history, and philosophy, as well as in religious, gender, and cultural studies.

Acts of reading appear everywhere in the late Middle Ages, from the margins of Books of Hours to self-portraits of authors in their studies. What relevance did this image have for the late medieval imagination? Engaging Words is an interdisciplinary study on the conception of reading in late medieval society. Beginning with an examination of the social conditions that produced a viable reading public, the book proceeds to examine popular tastes, the interrelationship between manuscript form and content, and finally the theory and poetry of late medieval authors. By drawing on images from late medieval culture as well as from historical documents and literary texts, Engaging Words shows how reading became a cultural metaphor in the late Middle Ages that transformed the way the Western world thought about identity and social roles.

France and the sociology of Islam, 1798-1890 -- The Algerian origins of Moroccan studies, 1890-1903 -- The political origins of the Moroccan colonial archive, 1900-1912 -- When paradigms shift : political and discursive contexts of the Moroccan question -- Tensions of empire : institutional contexts of research -- Social research in the technocolony : the colonial archive institutionalized, 1912-25 -- Berber policy : tribe and state -- Urban policy : Fez and the Muslim city -- The invention of Moroccan Islam -- From Moroccan Islam to the ethnographic state.

Moving beyond current theories on literacy practices, this edited collection sheds new light on the complexities inherent to the social, cultural, and ideological contexts in which literacy practices are realized. Building on Brian V. Street’s scholarship, contributors discuss literacy as intrinsically social and ideological, and examine how the theorizing of literacy practices has evolved in recognition of the diverse contexts in which written language is used. Breaking new intellectual and theoretical ground, this book brings together leading literacy scholars to re-examine how educational and sociocultural contexts frame and define literacy events and practices. Drawing from the richness of Brian V. Street’s work, this volume offers insights into fractures, tensions, and developments in literacy for scholars, students, and researchers.

Ethnography and qualitative research methodology in general have witnessed a staggering proliferation of styles and genres over the last three decades. Modes and channels of communication have similarly expanded and diversified. Now ethnographers have the opportunity to disseminate their work not only through traditional writing but also through aural, visual, performative, hypertext, and many diverse and creative multimodal documentation strategies. Yet, many ethnographers still feel insufficiently proficient with these new literacies and opportunities for knowledge mobilization, and they therefore still limit themselves to traditional modes of communication in spite of their desire for innovation. As university-based, community-driven and politically mandated agendas for broader knowledge transfer keep increasing worldwide, the demand for public scholarship continues to grow. Arguing for the need to disseminate innovative ethnographic knowledge more widely and more effectively, this book outlines practical strategies and tools for sharing ethnographic and qualitative research through widely accessible media such as magazines, trade books, blogs, newspapers, video, radio, and social media. Drawing from practical experiences and hands-on lessons, Doing Public Ethnography provides social scientists across all disciplines with concrete tactics for mobilizing knowledge beyond the academic realm.

A comprehensive overview of important contemporary issues in the field of reading research from the mid 1980s to mid 1990s, this well-received volume offers readers an examination of literacy through a variety of lenses--some permitting microscopic views and others panoramic views. A veritable "who's who" of specialists in the field, chapter authors cover current methodology, as well as cumulative research-based knowledge. Because it deals with society and literacy, the first section provides the broadest possible view of literacy. The second section defines the range of activities culturally determined to be a part of the enterprise known as literacy. The third focuses on the processes that individuals engage in when they perform the act of reading. The fourth section visits the environment in which the knowledge that comprises literacy is passed on from one generation to the next. The last section, an epilogue to the whole enterprise of reading research, provides apt philosophical reflection.