Cultures and Texts: Alternative Readings

Reading from a cultural studies perspective, as Easthope (1995) argues, differs from traditional readings situated in English Studies mainly because such readings extend our understanding of the content and its meaning by inviting “us to consider how this text is situated with respect to many other texts (written and visual, formal and informal, literary and non-literary, high and low ...); and so also with respect to the larger cultural and historical moment” (p. 32). Hence, such “cultural” readings both extend and deepen our understanding of the text while concretizing its content, with particular attention paid to its messages in connection with our everyday realities, including our diet, leisure activities, religious beliefs and practices, and our online interactions. Interestingly, cultural studies, as a specific branch of study, “is becoming more self-aware and circumspect” as [it] “is being recognized that culture operates at a variety of social levels and in a variety of media” (Pope, 2002, p. 46).

This book will include chapters that report researchers' readings of literary texts, including the media, from various cultural perspectives. Chapters will be blind-reviewed by at least two experts in the field and are expected to focus mainly on American literary writing in connection with cultural theories and frameworks stemming from Critical Theory, Marxism, and Gender Studies, to name a few.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Reading texts from any cultural studies perspective
• Identifying and analyzing particular cultural traits or values in literary texts
• Interpreting certain authors' strategic use of cultural markers, traits, practices, or materials
• Discussing the content and value of a text in relation to the cultural realities of the period in which it was produced
• Examining how everyday realities such as eating and leisure activities make meaning in relation to time and culture
• Exploring the visual, gustatory, or auditory culture in relation to the text
• Analyses of media texts.