Symposium: “Global Readers, Global Novels?”
NWO project: Reading Together: Practices, Positions, and Impacts of Collective Engagement with Literature
Maastricht University
Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences
Grote Gracht 76s (room 1.018)
23 October 2025 | 10:00– 17:30
Contact: globalreaders-fasos@maastrichtuniversity.nl
Please let us know whether you will be attending by filling out the registration form: https://maastrichtuniversity.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5pUDCFdFLwo01nM
In recent years, the figure of the reader has taken on renewed importance in humanities and social sciences approaches to literary fiction. This symposium brings together scholars from literary studies, sociology, computer science and psychology, alongside practitioners from the world of reading advocacy and literary programming, to explore the evolving landscape of collective reading in contemporary society.
The symposium has four panels:
10:10-11:40
Ben Davies (University of Portsmouth), James Procter (Newcastle University), and Aagje Swinnen (Maastricht University) will discuss the every-day, often overlooked practices of so-called lay readers engaging with fiction in groups;
11:55-13:25
Elsje Fourie (Maastricht University), Duygu Tekgül-Akın (Bahçeşehir University), María Angélica Thumala Olave (University of Edinburgh), and Annachiara Raia (Leiden University) will discuss the ways in which readers position themselves — socially, politically, affectively — through their reading practices;
14:10-15:40
Frank Hakemulder (Utrecht University), Karina van Dalen-Oskam (Huygens Institute), Joris van Zundert (Huygens Institute), and Olivia da Costa Fialho (Utrecht University) will discuss the challenges and possibilities of tracing and measuring the impact that literature has on individuals and communities;
15:55-17:20
Madalena Volio Tanet (literary scout and author), Akke Visser and Marije Wilmink (both from De Culturele Apotheek), and a representative from Senia Stichtung (to be confirmed) will discuss the perspectives of practitioners who design and facilitate reading experiences in a variety of public and institutional contexts.
Together, these panels engage with central questions in the study of reading today: How is literature used to make sense of the world and one’s place in it? How do collective reading practices shape identity, community, belonging and resistance? What forms of knowledge do readers produce, and how can scholars account for them methodologically and ethically? And how might collaborations between academics and practitioners help us better understand the role of literature in contemporary life? By foregrounding both empirical and theoretical approaches to reading, this symposium contributes to a growing body of work that seeks to bridge literary scholarship with reader response studies, public and engaged humanities, and the sociology of literature. It offers a space for dialogue between those who analyze reading and those who foster it on the ground — all with the shared goal of understanding what it means to read together, today.
