ERC Interactive Session

Submitting authors and speakers: 

• Zsuzsa Millei (Tampere University)
• Antti Saari (Tampere University)

Current academic ways of working allow almost no time for reading and criticality in its quest for research productivity. Some argue that there is a scholarly crisis in reading and criticality leading to a drop in rigorous social thought and analysis due to the central role of the number of publications in scholarly careers (Abbott, 2016).

In an accelerating academic climate, we often cite without engaging at all with texts, at other times, we quickly seek errors to perform criticality and miss the development of the argument in the text hence misinterpreting what the author intends to say. Engaging with ideas are not only about chasing novelty, filling gaps, and collecting numbers, through fast or creative use of randomness - surfing in sources, connecting topics or even literatures randomly, creating combinations of theory, methods, and substance.

The way we read and cite indicates the quality and criticality of our scholarship. To be sure, criticality in and beyond academic reading can assume many different forms. Most often critique refers either to assessing the logical consistency or empirical validity of claims made, or to unearthing implicit assumptions, meanings and interests ‘behind’ the text. This requires time as well as possibilities for sustained attention.  

Critical scholarship requires slow reading. It requires accompanying the author carefully, considering from the start where the author is coming from, what problems the author seeks to address and paying attention to the development of the argument. It is about teasing out issues and deep understanding by paying attention to complexities, or engaging with aesthetic dimensions of issues, often in affective, ethical or detailed manner.

There are also other kinds of equally demanding reading styles and ways of being critical, “experiences with texts that disrupt, that interrupt, that somehow open up unforeseen ways of being, thinking, feeling, and knowing” (Bridges-Rhoads et al, 2018, p. 817). These readings might change everything, open new fields of inquiry and critique, and complex and might even conflicting routes of becoming for scholars.

This interactive session is composed of short problem posing provocations and participatory activities to follow on issues and reflect in relation to one’s own reading and practices of scholarly critique. We explore different forms of slow and critical reading to get a ‘feel’ for varying approaches and what the produce.