From texts to readers: Literary criticism, sociology of practice and cultural history

This essay is devoted to two questions. Firstly, it analyzes how reading was conceived by literary criticism, sociology of practices, and cultural history in the end of the twentieth century. What is at stake here is the conceptualization of the relationship between the text and the reader and the process through which meaning is constructed. Secondly, it recalls some fundamental questions raised by the history of reading, not for their own sake but because they can suggest some approaches for the analysis of reading practices in modern times.