{"product_id":"diffractive-reading-new-materialism-theory-critique-9781538155677","title":"Diffractive Reading: New Materialism, Theory,","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePutting the New Materialist figure of diffraction to use in a set of readings – in which cultural texts are materially read against their contents and their themes, against their readers or against other texts – this volume proposes a critical intervention into the practice of reading itself. In this book, reading and reading methodology are probed for their materiality and re-considered as being inevitably suspended between, or diffracted with, both matter and discourse. The history of literary and cultural reading, including poststructuralism and critical theory, is revisited in a new light and opened-up for a future in which the world and reading are no longer regarded as conveniently separate spheres, but recognized as deeply entangled and intertwined. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDiffractive Reading ultimately represents a new reading of reading itself: firstly by critiquing the distanced perspective of critical paradigms such as translation and intertextuality, in which texts encountered, processed or otherwise subdued; secondly, showing how all literary and cultural readings represent different ‘agential cuts’ in the world-text-reader constellation, which is always both discursive and material; and thirdly, the volume materializes, dynamizes and politicizes the activity of reading by drawing attention to reading’s intervention in, and (co)creation of, the world in which we live.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eReading is never neutral, never distant: it always makes a difference, it always interferes. That is the message—in theory and practice—of this volume insightfully edited by Kai Merten. In an entangled conversation of topics and voices, Diffractive Reading has a double goal: refining a methodology and involving more readers in the process. Reality, it tells you, is in the making even as you read these words. \u003c\/p\u003e -- Serenella Iovino, Professor of Italian Studies and Environmental Humanities, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, co-editor of Material Ecocriticism\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eHow do we read a text, the world, the ideas of others, together? In this important book, Kai Merten gathers a range of contributions from different parts of academia, showing us the power of reading all that matters diffractively. These are affirmative and engaged mappings of a world in the making. A must read for all involved in how to analyse the contemporary. \u003c\/p\u003e -- Rick Dolphijn, Assistant Professor in Media Theory\/Cultural Theory, Utrecht University\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e1. Introduction - Kai Merten (Erfurt, Germany)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePART I: Diffractive Reading: Groundwork\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e2. On the Politics of Diffractive Reading - Birgit M. Kaiser \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e3. Heraclitus’s speculative onto-story: Impossible appointments and the importance of the encounter - Max Walther\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e4. Decoherent Reading: On the Constitutive Exclusions of Diffractive Reading - Stacey Moran\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e5. Reading speculative horror readings diffractively - Peter Schuck \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePART II: Diffracting Literature: Diffractions of the World-Text-Reader Entanglement\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e6. Poem, Epic, and Epoch: A Diffractive Reading of William Carlos Williams’s Paterson and Georg Lukács’s Theory of the Novel in the Age of New Materialism - Brendan Johnston \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e7. Sauron’s Sliding Door: The Diffraction of Mythological and Intimate ‘Evil’ in Tolkien - Bo Kampmann Walther \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e8. Sensing I and Eyes in Ali Smith’s How to Be Both - Daniela Keller \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e9. Practices of Entanglement: UnReading the Genre in China Miéville’sThe Scar - Agnieszka Kotwasińska \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e10. The Entanglements of Harry Burden: A Diffractive Reading of Siri Hustvedt - Matthias Stephan\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e11. Surfacing: A diffractive reading experiment with books and houses in Walter Benjamin’s Ich packe meine Bibliothek aus and Carlos María Domínguez’ Casa de papel - Annina Klappert \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePART III: Diffracting (in) Music, Visual and Digital Media\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e12. Diffractive Aesthetics \u0026amp; Holographic Literacies: Transcoding the Gigaton Volume Detector [A Diffracted Photo-Essay] - Jol Thoms \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e13. Diffracting Maternal and Female Midlife Sexual Assemblages in Postfeminist Popular Culture - Susan Yi Sencindiver \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e14. Ontoflecting Through U2 - Nathan D. Frank \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e15. Reprogramming Rhetoric: Toward a Diffractive Epistemology of Computer Composition - Sean McCullough \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rowman \u0026 Littlefield","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51041203224919,"sku":"9781538155677","price":31.5,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781538155677.jpg?v=1750949342","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/diffractive-reading-new-materialism-theory-critique-9781538155677","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}