Literary sociability: a transnational perspective

ABSTRACT

This essay begins with vignettes showcasing the pedagogy of three teachers of literature in contrastive settings (one in Brazil, two in Australia). These act as prompts for a transnational dialogue between us that unfolds in our writing of this essay. The aim is not to assess or make judgements about the quality of the teaching presented but to identify and explore the assumptions we share about the value of literature teaching across the languages and national contexts that divide us. We argue the primacy of language as a social phenomenon, characterising the exchanges around literary texts in each classroom as forms of “literary sociability”.

KEYWORDS:

• Literature teaching
• comparative research
• literary sociability
• Vygotsky
• Vološinov

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundação Araucária, Brazil [415/2009-14947] and Investigating Literary Knowledge in the Making of English Teachers [DP160101084].

Notes on contributors

Cláudio Mello

Cláudio Mello is an Associate Professor of the Department of Linguistic and Literature of the Universidade Estadual do Centro-Oeste, Brazil, where he leads the Literature and Education Research Group. His research topics of interest include literary education, reading mediation and didactics of literature.

Email: [email protected]

Brenton Doecke

Brenton Doecke is Emeritus Professor in the School of Education at Deakin University. Brenton has published widely in the fields of teacher education and English curriculum and pedagogy. Brenton is a Chief Investigator of the ARC Discovery project Investigating Literary Knowledge in the Making of English Teachers.

Larissa McLean Davies

Larissa McLean Davies is an Associate Professor – Language and Literacy Education and Associate Dean – Learning and Teaching and at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, The University of Melbourne. She is the Lead Chief Investigator of the ARC Discovery project Investigating Literary Knowledge in the Making of English Teachers.

Lucy Buzacott

Lucy Buzacott is a Research Fellow and the Project Manager of the Investigating Literary Knowledge in the Making of English Teachers project at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, The University of Melbourne.