Seeking "Significance": Actual Readers, Specific Reading Communities

an interaction between text and reader, more theoretical (and more empirical) attention has been paid to the “text,” while the element of the “reader” remains relatively unexplicated.1 It might be argued that “the sociology of the text” encompasses “the sociology of the reader.”2 But such an approach tends to subordinate the reader to the text; that is, researchers’ reconstitution of readers emerges as a by-product of their knowledge and understanding of texts.3 The history of the book is shifting attention from texts to readers, however, and the need to explore not only how we conceptualize the ideal reader but also how we can uncover the speciWc reading practices of actual readers is evident.4 Discussion of historical reading practices has revolved particularly around the difWcult question of “how” people read.5 Was there indeed a reading revolution representing a shift from intensive to extensive reading? When and how did silent reading become widespread? What of collective, communitarian reading, or the active reading emphasized by reader response and reception theorists?6 One approach to addressing the “how” of reading is by way of elaborating on the “who.” As Roger Chartier has repeatedly reminded us, the practice of reading takes place as a “speciWc act and habit, and in speciWc Seeking “Significance”