TORCH Goes Digital! Reading

Good morning, and welcome to the sixth week of #TORCHGoesDigital! We hope everyone in the TORCH community is keeping happy and healthy. A huge thank you to everyone who tuned in to watch our third Big Tent, Big Ideas! live-streamed event with Professor Emma Smith and Erica Whyman OBE.

This week, we are focusing on the theme of "Reading". We have curated a wonderful programme of blog posts, podcasts, news articles, poems, performances and more for you to enjoy .

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . The man who never reads lives only one.” – George R.R. Martin

Reading encompasses a fascinating interaction between the written word and the reader. The process is shaped by prior knowledge, experiences, attitude, and the language community—which is culturally and socially situated. The history of reading dates back to the invention of writing during the 4th millennium BC. Reading has no firmly-established laws. Rather, the process of reading provides a form of escapism, allowing those who engage in it opportunities for textual interpretation that are interlaced with introspective wanderings and empathetic communions. In so doing, reading is a way to know the self, the other, and the world.

This week, we will be considering questions such as:

How can one travel the world with literature?
Where do myths, legends, and folktales come from?
What is the Bildungsroman?
What was the role of the novel in 1940s France?

This Thursday 30th April 2020, from 5.00pm-6.00pm, we have our next Big Tent, Big Ideas! live-streamed event! Professor Abigail Williams and Giles Lewin will be speaking on "The Social Life of Books: A History of Reading Together at Home".

Remember, we are happy to feature content submissions related to this theme, be it a poem, artwork, blog post, or book review!

Unleash your creativity, and send your suggestions and content to torch@humanities.ox.ac.uk.