Aesthetic Experience, Reading Practices and Literary Studies: Functions and Uses of Literature

Panel for the next American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) annual meeting (Virtual, May 29 –  June 1, 2025)

Organizer: Tijana Przulj (University of Bergen, Norway)

Deadline for proposing a paper: October 14, 2024

To propose a paper, please use the link on this page (right below the title): https://www.acla.org/aesthetic-experience-reading-practices-and-literary-studies-functions-and-uses-literature

The idea that literature has a particular and inimitable effect on the individual is hardly new. Whether it supports spiritual and cultural development or provides the individual with structures that help articulate parts of their inner imaginaries (W. Fluck), literature undeniably has a function in human societies. However, despite  centuries of contemplating the question of effects and functions of literature, we still seem to be no closer to a concrete answer, if such a thing is even possible and desirable. This seminar then asks: What kind of research on reading practices could help us explore human need to seek out fictions, the aesthetic experience we gain from reading literature and the incommensurability of our various interpretations of it?

In literary studies, W. Iser suggested that what he called “literary anthropology” could provide an answer to the question of why human beings continuously seek out fictions. In his view, the fictional acts a mediator between the imaginary (undefined undercurrents of being) and the real – it is a gestalt of the imaginary, but still very dependent on the real for its articulation. However, Fluck pointed out that Iser’s reasoning in this case means the need for fiction then simply comes down to an experience of “non-identity” or “unknowability” of the self. He further proposed funktionsgeschichte as a better option, as it relies on the ability of fiction to articulate bits of the imaginary, but also recognizes that we need to look at the cultural history of literary text in order to find the myriad ways in which this articulation manifests itself.

On the other hand, anthropologists seem to have a completely different idea of what literary anthropology entails, and alternately describe its domain as use of literary modes of writing ethnography, study of literary practices using anthropological methods, literary figures as inspiration to anthropologist, and use of literary text as anthropological source material. In this context, E. Wiles has pointed out the scarcity of research on contemporary Western literary practices, bringing up J. Radway and her study of romance novels as one of the rare examples of such research. This seminar then asks whether the “anthropological” literary anthropology, as applied in the research of Radway and others like her, can help bring clarity to Iser’s literary anthropology and the act of reading as imagined by the literary studies. In other words, the seminar asks what kinds of empirical research could help shed some light on the questions about function and uses of literature that have been asked in literary studies.

Possible topics include:

•  Literary scholarship and real-world effects of literature

•  Lessons from scholars such as Fluck, Radway, H. Wulff, A. Reed, H. Mantel, E. Wiles

•  Literary anthropology and/or aesthetic response and/or cultural studies and /or reception history, and functions of literature