Reading Home Cultures Through Books

by Kirsti Salmi-Niklander (Editor), Marija Dalbello (Editor)

Overview

This wide-ranging, comparative, and multidisciplinary collection addresses the significance of books in creating the idea of home. The chapters present cases that reveal the affective and sensory dimensions of books and reading in the practice of everyday life of individuals, in communities, and in society. The complex relationship of books, reading, and home is explored through American and European case studies both in bourgeois and middle-class homes, and in working-class and immigrant families and communities with limited possibilities for reading. The volume combines the conceptions and representations of domesticity, the materiality of reading, and library as a place, drawing on book history and material culture studies as well as anthropology and sociology of the home.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367689131
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	02/28/2022
Series:	Home
Pages:	154
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Kirsti Salmi-Niklander is a Senior Lecturer in Folklore Studies in the Department of Cultures at the University of Helsinki, Finland.

Marija Dalbello is a Professor of Information Studies in the School of Communication and Information, Rutgers University, USA.

Table of Contents

Introduction: HOW TO READ HOME CULTURES THROUGH BOOKS?; ; PART I: HISTORIES; ; Chapter 1: IMMIGRANTS BEING AT HOME IN LIBRARIES. HOW THE IMMIGRANTS BROUGHT THEIR HOME TO THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY　; ; Chapter 2: LITERACY, ABC BOOKS AND PRIMARY READERS IN FINNISH IMMIGRANT HOMES AND COMMUNITIES IN THE U.S. ; ; Chapter 3: "A PARADE OF HOME." REPRESENTATIONS OF HOME IN GREEK AMERICAN COMMUNITY ALBUMS; ; PART II: TRANSFORMATION; ; Chapter 4: BOOKS AND THE CREATION OF THE MIDDLE-CLASS HOME IN AMERICAN NINETEENTH-CENTURY DOMESTIC FICTION; ; Chapter 5: SIMULATING DOMESTIC SPACE IN 1990S TECHNOCULTURE: TIMOTHY LEARY’S VIRTUAL HOME LIBRARY; ; Chapter 6: BOOKSHELVES CREATE A COZY ATMOSPHERE: AFFECTIVE AN EMOTIONAL MATERIALITY IN BOOKREADING PRACTICES; ; PART III: L’ENVOI; ; Chapter 7: WRITING HOME CULTURES THROUGH BOOKS AT THE TIME OF THE PANDEMIC; Patience and Fortitude in the First Person ; My Library as a Second Home ; Touching the Books ; My Bookcase, My Anchor; or Some Reflections on My (Zoom) Background; What We Lose When We Work From Home ; Listening to Books through Lockdown ;