The talk will begin with an overview of international research on the effects of reading, including studies on empathy and theory of mind, as well as findings showing that shared reading may help reduce symptoms of depression and offer support for people with dementia. It will then reflect on why and how literature might produce such effects, for example, by giving us the opportunity to “try on” a different life.
The talk will next turn to the research project LIFE – LIterature For Empowerment, which focuses on eudaimonia, discussing its research design and the ways it has evolved. It will examine the concept of eudaimonia, rooted in Aristotelian thought, and then invite the audience to brainstorm how best to capture the potential eudaimonic effects of reading in a reader questionnaire that could be used in a reading experiment.
Finally, the lecture will step back to a meta level by contrasting the presented approach to studying literary reception and the social impact of reading with a different study that examined the history of the Polish reception of George Orwell.
Krystyna Wieszczek
Krystyna Wieszczek, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow (Horizon Europe MSCA), University of Verona, Italy, and Columbia University, New York. Krystyna specialises in twentieth-century English literature. Her current research project investigates empirical reception, particularly the potential impact of literature on individual empowerment. Her previous research explored historical reception and the social collective impact of reading, as well as translation history and censorship. Her monograph George Orwell and Communist Poland: Émigré, Official and Clandestine Receptions has just been published.
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