Thinking silence, speaking out: reading experiences and reader-subjects in Anglo-American feminist literary theory

Abstract

Since the 1970s, Anglo-American feminist literary theories have continuously offered a critical reflection on female and feminist reading practices and, more broadly, on empirical reading. Often presented as a political enterprise of resistance to patriarchal literary tradition, they are also an examination of the reading experience, particularly the reading of fiction. This paper examines how these reflections were fundamental to the field of reception studies, and still inform work on reading in various disciplinary fields, including literature, sociology, education and cognitive science. It also illustrates how contemporary academic debates about teaching and interpreting violences in literary texts are part of the ethical and hermeneutical shift initiated by these literary gender studies.