Reading Home Cultures Through Books

Description

This wide-ranging, comparative and multidisciplinary collection addresses the significance of books in creating the idea of home. The chapters present cases that reveal the affective and sensory dimensions of books and reading in the practice of everyday life of individuals, in communities, and in society. The complex relationship of books, reading and home is explored through American and European case studies both in bourgeois and middle-class homes, and in working-class and immigrant families and communities with limited possibilities for reading. The volume combines the conceptions and representations of domesticity, the materiality of reading, and library as a place, drawing on book history and material culture studies as well as anthropology and sociology of the home. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of figures Acknowledgments List of contributors Introduction: How to read home cultures through books Books and home cultures: methodological perspectives Histories, transformations, and reflections At the time of writing Note References Part I: Histories Chapter 1: Immigrants being at home in libraries: How the immigrants brought their home to the New York Public Library Library services for immigrants during the Progressive era in American history The library as a replacement home and “citizenship machine” “Immigrants being at home in libraries”—their presence and silences in the record Situating foreign-language collections and readers—Searches for “foreign” in NYPL reports Collecting books in “foreign” languages Teaching “foreign” populations Reaching “foreign” language readers and communities Making the library branches contact grounds in “foreign” neighborhoods Situating libraries as institutional home—Searches for “home” in the NYPL reports Situating immigrants as users of libraries—Searches for “-migrant-,” “alien-” in the NYPL reports The physicality of libraries as homes and placemaking in libraries The ideological staging of the library as home—NYPL institutional position Domesticated immigrant readers domesticating the library: Friction between the library home and the tenement home An inside-out perspective of the library in the city: An exposé of the reality of aspirations Immigrants making a shadow home in the library Conclusion Acknowledgment Notes References Chapter 2: Literacy, ABC books, and primary readers in Finnish immigrant homes and communities in the US Basic education in Finnish immigrant communities ABC books as tools for cultural interaction Ideals and images of home Home and school in socialist primers Images of class and race Reasons for maintaining the Finnish language Family collections of ABC books and primary readers Conclusion Notes References Primary sources Secondary sources Chapter 3: “A parade of home”: Representations of home in Greek American community albums “A brilliant book” The community celebrates Greetings from both homes Narrating small histories Illustrating the American Dream Family photographs Conclusions Notes References Primary sources Secondary sources Part II: Transformations Chapter 4: Books and the creation of the middle-class home in American nineteenth-century domestic fiction 1 Classifying books Buying books Owning books Conclusion Notes References Chapter 5: Simulating domestic space in 1990s technoculture: Timothy Leary’s virtual home library Introduction Historical precedents Public and private reading Shared and domestic computing Case study Leary’s print and digital archives Conclusion References Chapter 6: Bookshelves create a cozy atmosphere: Affective and emotional materiality in bookreading practices Research material and analysis What is an atmosphere? Enjoying the feel and scent of books Uncomfortable atmospheres Conclusions: Materiality of books can create a mood for reading Archival Material Notes References Part III: L’envoi Chapter 7: Writing home cultures through books at the time of the pandemic Patience and Fortitude, in the first person Scene 1—Retrospection Scene 2—Remembering Scene 3—Re-turning References My library as a second home Touching the books My bookcase, my anchor, or some reflections on my (Zoom) background References What we lose when we work from home Listening to books through lockdown Index