How Close Reading Made Us - The Transnational Legacies of New Criticism

Shows how the method of close reading traveled from the United States to Brazil and Israel, revealing its profound impact on global modernisms and reframing the lasting significance of New Criticism.
Does reading shape who we are? What happens to the relationship between reading and subject-formation as methods of interpretation travel globally? Yael Segalovitz probes these questions by tracing the transnational journey of the New Critical practice of close reading from the United States to Brazil and Israel in the mid-twentieth century. Challenging the traditional view of New Criticism as a purely aesthetic project, Segalovitz illustrates its underlying pedagogical objective: to cultivate close readers capable of momentarily suspending subjectivity through focused attention. How Close Reading Made Us shows that close reading, as a technique of the self, exerted a far-reaching influence on international modernist literary production, impacting writers such as Clarice Lispector, Yehuda Amichai, William Faulkner, João Guimarães Rosa, and A. B. Yehoshua. To appreciate close reading's enduring vitality in literary studies and effectively adapt this method to the present, Segalovitz argues, we must comprehend its many legacies beyond the confines of the Anglophone tradition.

Über den Autor / die Autorin

Yael Segalovitz is Assistant Professor in the Department of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.

Produktdetails

• Autoren: Yael Segalovitz
• Verlag: State University of New York Press
• Sprache: Englisch
• Produktform: Taschenbuch
• Erschienen: 02.03.2025
• EAN: 9781438498713
• ISBN: 978-1-4384-9871-3
• Seiten: 318
• Themen: Belletristik > Lyrik, Dramatik; Geisteswissenschaften, Kunst, Musik > Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft > Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft; USA, Latin America, LITERARY CRITICISM / Semiotics & Theory, LITERARY CRITICISM / Jewish, LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Comparative Literature, LITERARY CRITICISM / Caribbean & Latin American, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 20th Century, Comparative Literature, Caribbean islands, Jewish Studies, Literature: history & criticism, United States of America, USA, Literary studies: from c 1900 -, Latin America – Mexico, Central America, South America, Literary theory, Semiotics / semiology, Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000, Literature: history and criticism, Relating to Jewish people and groups, Social groups: religious groups and communities