Our work focuses upon the ways that texts, especially literary fiction, are produced, circulated and received. We use a variety of research methods in order to understand how and why readers engage with books and with each other.
Our scholarly training was in literary studies (Fuller) and communication studies (Rehberg Sedo). We combine these disciplines to create nuanced analyses of contemporary cultures of reading. In other words, we are interested not only in reading practices, but also in the ideas about readers and reading promoted by institutions (e.g. educational, governmental) and by individuals whose professional lives involve them in the creation of activities, policy, media and products associated with books and reading. Most of our work to date has dealt with contemporary reading cultures in the USA, Canada and the UK.
Our fascination with large-scale events that encourage people to share reading inspired a collaborative interdisciplinary research project: Beyond the Book: Mass Reading Events and Contemporary Cultures of Reading in the UK, USA and Canada. Prior to this study, we completed research on women's writing and publishing communities in Atlantic Canada (Fuller), and examined book clubs in face-to-face and virtual environments (Rehberg Sedo).
Beyond the Book: Mass Reading Events and Contemporary Cultures of Reading in the UK, USA and Canada was a three-year interdisciplinary research project funded primarily by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, 2005-8.
The project was an investigation of 'mass reading events' - our name for programmes such as 'Liverpool Reads', 'One Book, One Chicago' and even 'Richard and Judy's Book Club'.
Mass reading events (MREs) are a relatively new, proliferating literary phenomenon. They aim to involve as many people as possible in reading, discussing or participating in activities associated with a selected book, rather like a book club but on a much larger scale: city-, region- or even nation-wide. These reading events raise important questions: why do people to come together to share reading? Do they attract marginalized communities, foster new reading practices, enable social change?
Our project investigated these issues using a range of methods. We drew upon the online questionnaire responses of more than 3,500 readers and fieldwork studies of eight 'One Book, One Community' programmes and two nation-wide mass-mediated events: 'Richard & Judy's Book Club' on UK television and 'Canada Reads', a radio series. In addition to the analysis of media reports and promotional material of the events, our conclusions are based on 57 face-to-face focus groups with 200 readers and 72 interviews with event organizers in the UK, the USA and Canada.
The research data arising from this original and ambitious project is vast, extremely detailed, and analysis is on-going. Beyond academia, our preliminary analyses have already been shared with public librarians, reading event organizers and a series of other cultural organizations concerned with the promotion of reading and literacy. Links and citations to our published pieces and conference presentations, in addition to our public and invited talks, are available on this website.
Through its attention to the motivations, pleasures and activities of readers, and via our analysis of the politics and economy of cultural production, 'Beyond the Book' is a trans-national analysis of contemporary shared reading practices, the formation of reading communities and the popular function of literary fiction that addresses a significant knowledge-gap in literary and cultural scholarship.
Beyond the Book: Mass Reading Events and Contemporary Cultures of Reading in the UK, USA and Canada was a collaborative project. Directed by literary scholar-cum-qualitative research expert and table-maker extraordinaire Dr Danielle Fuller at the University of Birmingham, UK and fieldwork guru Dr DeNel Rehberg Sedo at Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, Canada, a core research team of three scholars and an administrative assistant was supplemented by the efforts of 34 temporary project workers and translators, many of whom were university students.
Dr Anouk Lang (now Lecturer in English Studies, University of Strathclyde) was the project's full-time Postdoctoral Fellow, while Dr Anna Burrells provided us with part-time administrative assistance.
Translation into and from Spanish and French, the two most widely-spoken second languages in the USA and Canada, was ably provided by Aiora Irizar, Dominique Belkadi, Annie Rigler and Claire Wood.
Fieldwork assistants: LaDonna Saunders (Chicago); Amy Laurent (Bristol); Cathy Collett, Kimberly Walsh, Lesley Mulcahy (Halifax); Lori Thiessen (Vancouver); Sara Beadle and Anna Burrells (Birmingham); Claire Brown and Ross Cohen (Liverpool); Diana LaChance (Huntsville); Felice Atesoglu and Mitogo Ayekaba (Seattle).
Transcribers: Brett Birks, Bronagh Clarke, Rich Langley, and Mike Dunn (UK); Hanni Bouma, Tricia Smith, and Amelia Chester (Canada).
Stats consultant: Lindsay Engel (Canada).
Conference assistants: Cristina Ivanovici, Olivia Chambers, Ann Bower (UK).
Beyond the Book was supported by an Advisory Board consisting of three senior scholars: Professor R.J. Ellis, Dr Ann McDermott (both University of Birmingham,UK) and Professor Jenny Hartley (Roehampton University, UK).
This website was originally designed for us by the creative folks at Nemisys, and updated by the multi-talented John Horne assisted by Grant Burton.