What is Reading?

The answers to this question will be read—deciphered—in the many “reading scenes” found throughout the history of literature or philosophy. In Plato’s Phaedrus , reading thus appears caught in a network of desire and power: the dominant role—the erases (“lover”) who writes and teaches—and the passive or submissive position—the eromenos (“beloved”) who reads and learns—are constantly permutated and destabilized. Hobbes’ Leviathan , Melville’s Moby Dick and Billy Budd , Goethe’s and Valéry’s Faust will lead us to question what we do when we read and reflect upon what could be called a politics of reading .