Botond Szemes
@botondszemes.bsky.social
152 followers 103 following 26 posts
Computational Literary Studies, Media and Culture Studies, Stylometry @Budapest, @Tartu, DigiTS group
Computational Literary Studies, Media and Culture Studies, Stylometry @Budapest, @Tartu, DigiTS group
![Line graph showing the history of different types of '[adjective] reading' in Anglophone literary studies from 1920-2020. The x-axis represents publication decades, while the y-axis shows the percent of '[adjective] reading' instances in literary studies journals as a 9-decade moving average. Multiple colored lines track various reading methodologies over time. 'Close reading' shows the most dramatic rise, peaking around 2010 at approximately 18% (33 times its 1920s usage). 'Original reading' dominated the 1920s at 7.6% but declined to 0.5% by the 2010s. Other notable methodologies include 'careful reading' (peaked 1960s), 'critical reading' (peaked 1980s), 'wide reading' (1920s), 'correct reading' (1930s), 'new reading' (1950s), 'feminist reading' (1990s), 'textual reading' (2000s), 'distant reading' (2010s), and 'nuanced reading' (2010s). Each labeled point includes the decade of peak usage, the percentage at peak, and the ratio compared to its lowest-usage decade. Data sourced from JSTOR across seven leading literary studies journals including PMLA, Critical Inquiry, New Literary History, ELH, Modern Language Review, Review of English Studies, and Modern Philology.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:llsfba2zryavs4uunglknwie/bafkreicyi6bsqxkrmjstwbyxfvis33j2wxatye2t2dh5fva5pk46xw6n7y)
