Book Review: Vorobyeva, T.L. (Ed.) (2020) Problema Chitatelya v Tomske i Tomskoy Gubernii v Kontse XIX - Nachale XX Vv. [The Problem of the Reader in Tomsk and Tomsk Province in the Late 19th - Early 20th Centuries]. Tomsk: Tomsk State University

The reviewed textbook presents the results of a study of the personality of the reader of Tomsk and Tomsk Province in the late 19th - early 20th centuries. The review shows the high relevance of these results for the study of modern processes in the field of reading and notes the importance of these results for the development of professional competencies of workers in the publishing and library industries. The content of the textbook is characterized. The significance of its use for studying the problems of sociology and psychology of reading, regional and Russian publishing, issues of the history of the development of culture in Siberia is determined.

The impact of serious games on the learning of students with Autism Spectrum Disorder

With the increasing number of students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) being enrolled in the public education system, it is progressively necessary to think about differentiated pedagogical practices to assist in the learning of these scholars. From this angle, the usage of technologies can be an alternative for the teaching-learning process of distinct educational aspects, such as in the literacy process. For this reason, this paper utilized the game Mundo das Letras (World of Letters) to verify which would be the possible contributions to the learning of ASD students; the initial results revealed that serious games based on the cognitive psychology of reading can positively impact their learning.

Modern approaches to teaching in O.Yu. Bogdanova’s methodological heritage

The aim of the article is to analyze the main directions of scientific and pedagogical activity of O.Yu. Bogdanova, the issues of her scientific works (the content of literary education, reading interests, the peculiarities of the perception of fiction by students, the relationship between the perception and analysis of a literary work, the co-creation of the teacher and students in literature lessons). The article uses a comparative historical research method. The authors acknowledge O.Yu. Bogdanova’s contribution to the modern theory and methodology of teaching literature, to developing various ideas of his teacher V.V. Golubkov’s: On binding methodology with psychology, on the close connection of the methodology of teaching literature with sociology and the psychology of reading, on the need to rely on the achievements of literary criticism and didactics. The issue of the student being a reader became one of central in the scientific works of O.Yu. Bogdanova, who functioned already in her early articles both as a methodologist and as a psychologist. In 1980s, at the Department of Literature Teaching Methods of Moscow State Pedagogical Institute named after V.I. Lenin (now – MPGU), under her leadership, the V.V. Golubkov scientific school was established. The school considered the issue of interest both on the basis of the study of the reading interests of schoolchildren, students, teachers, parents, and on the experience of the effective organization of a literature lesson, other forms of educational activities and extracurricular activities that promoted the development of interest in reading and studying literature. In conclusion, the article deduces that many of the scientist’s requirements for the training and retraining of language teachers are relevant: dialogization of the content of literary education, development of interest in reading, active development of the ideas of hermeneutics, study of the dynamics of teaching literature, search for new effective methods and technologies for conducting lessons and extracurricular literature classes.

A Bourgeois Reader Through the Eyes of a Post-Bourgeois Researcher: On Tatiana Venediktova’s Literature as an Experience, or a “Bourgeois Reader” as a Cultural Hero. Moscow: New Literary Observer, 2018. 280 p.

Tatiana Venediktova’s new book is devoted to the problem particularly relevant for contemporary philosophers, culturologists and philologists. In the situation of radical changes in the social and economic status of literature, the question of the reader’s role ceases to be an element of receptive aesthetics or the psychology of reading only and strongly requires new approaches for its research. In Venediktova’s interpretation, the reader is a real participant in the creative process and gets new experience through communication with the literary work creating new meanings, often different from those the author laid in the text. The figure of a bourgeois reader is presented through the intersection of literary history, cultural history and literary theory dimensions. This gave Venediktova the possibility to use the sociological poetics of Mikhail Bakhtin’s circle. At the same time, Venediktova’s research methods have little in common with the traditional sociology of reading and the new sociology of reader. The reference to Bakhtin is not only a tribute to today’s fashion in the humanities. Bakhtin as a reader and creator of new artistic and aesthetic meanings is a special and not yet explored part in the modern history of literary text interpretation. In the later fragments, Bakhtin offers his own understanding of the image of the reader opposing it to the structuralist image of the ideal reader. Venediktova chooses the 19th century as a field of her research. It is the historical period when the bourgeois class consciousness reaches its highest point and acquires a special sociality; one of its characteristic features is the wide-spread distribution of books and reading and the final democratisation of the readership. The author presents a transition from the theoretical description of the bourgeois reader to the historical interpretation of the possibilities and ways of gaining aesthetic experience as a consistent transfer from poetry to prose. The prosaisation of the lyrical vision of the world and man finds its continuation in the novel as a “bourgeois epic” (Hegel). The concept of the book is especially convincing due to the author’s reliance on the authoritative circle of the classics of the contemporary humanities as well as on the well-made and logical composition of the text. The literary-historical parts of the monograph become a natural continuation and development of theoretical ideas. In gaining new reader experience, the specific characteristics of its source, the changing position of the creator of the text are important. It equally works in relation to the poetry of William Wordsworth, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, Charles Baudelaire and to the novels of Honoré de Balzac, Herman Melville, Gustave Flaubert, and George Eliot. Another important feature of the book is the prospects of the research. The problem of the bourgeois reader seems relevant for the sociocultural history of Russian literature and for the understanding of the role and interaction of the reader and writer in the space of today’s World Wide Web.

„Free reading”: the content of the concept and its interpretation in the scientific literature

The article considers the interpretation of the definition of „free reading” in humanitarian research (sociology of reading, psychology of reading, pedagogy, methodology of teaching literature, library science, cultural studies). The aim of the article is to differentiate the concept of „free reading” from other concepts. In order to achieve the result different interpretations of its content are analyzed and the type variety of reading is considered. The interrelation of the concepts of „free reading”, „leisure reading”, „independent reading”, „extra-curricular reading”, „reading for oneself” is traced, and the features (characteristics) inherent to free reading are revealed.

Psychological Problems of Reading of Troubled Teenagers and Compensatory Features of Interactive Document in their Solution

The problem of reader’s indifference of troubled teenagers hinders the development of cultural society; therefore, library-information institutions of the Russian Federation organize reading for this social community. However, library practices have low efficiency due to the lack of scientific knowledge about reader’s motives and informational needs of difficult teenagers, as well as special methods for developing their reading. To develop scientific methods for correcting the reading of difficult adolescents, taking into account their psycho-physiological features, the authors conducted the applied study based on the knowledge of the psychology of reading. The purpose of the article is to highlight the results of research aimed at studying the reader characteristics of socially troubled teenager and the method of organizing the reading in libraries. As a result, the authors revealed that the weakness of the emotional-volitional sphere, the involuntary attention, the inability to perceive and retain a large number of printed characters in consciousness is the basis of the reader’s failure of difficult adolescents. From this circumstance arose the question of using stimulating components in the reading process. Understanding the psychological features of the perception of text by troubled teenagers has allowed to assume that characteristics of the interactive document are the most suitable for them as external stimulus of reading. The data obtained in the psychological-pedagogical experiment indicated that interactive document compensates for the inadequate associative determinants of difficult teenager in the perception of printed documents, promotes visualization of literary images, which, in turn, contributes to the formation of motivational attitudes to reading and satisfies the information need. The authors consider the specific feature of interactive documents, which allows presenting the material in a more accessible perception. Reading of interactive documents can serve as a new effective method of the library work to meet the information needs of this social group, and it will expand the organization of reading of troubled teenagers.