I describe my research as a sociology of literature. The interdisciplinary work has theoretical foundation in French cultural theorist Pierre Bourdieu’s notions of social and cultural capital, symbolic power and power structures, cultural fields, and habitus; American Educational and Media philosopher Douglas Kellner’s understanding of contemporary media, and media spectacle in particular; American sociologist Paul DiMaggio’s categorical hierarchies of taste and individual/collective/institutional agency influenced by class positions; and, Canadian sociologist Dorothy Smith’s feminist standpoint theory and her theory of ruling relations of power. The work might be situated within the interdisciplinary fields of communication, cultural, and cyber studies.
I approach the professional field of Public Relations in which I teach much as I do the reading cultures that I investigate. Power relations are at the crux of my research interests. I want to know who has it and why, what do they do with it, and to what effect.
Using mixed methods that transfer across disciplinary inquiry, I investigate reading as a socially embedded activity. I analyse and critique media production and representation of contemporary and historical reading practices. I explore the production itself and people’s interpretations of those representations, the literature people read, and the articulations of their reading experiences. Moreover, I critically assess the relationships that form around cultural participation. These analyses necessarily consider the broader social, cultural and political contexts in which we live. Because of my scholarly “training” in cultural studies criticism, I privilege the concepts of gender, class, sexuality, occupation, ethnicity, and religion in my research.
Beyond the Book is my current, international research project. I love this project, and am so proud of all that Danielle and I have done to create solid research that will help us better understand the role of reading in our lives (at least in our lives in NA and the UK). We have surrounded ourselves with incredibly smart team members, and have met unbelievably kind and giving people in our travels.
Below are details of my work to date as they appear on my curricula vitae. Eventually, I’ll provide you links to my work. In the meantime, if you think my research will inform your own, please email me and I’ll send you electronic versions if I have them
SCHOLARLY ACTIVITY: PUBLICATIONS
BOOKS AND MONOGRAPHS
(2009, under review). Editor. From salons to cyberspace: Readings of reading communities. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
REFEREED BOOK CHAPTERS
(2009, under review). Introduction to reading communities. In D. Rehberg Sedo (Ed.), From salons to cyberspace: Readings of reading communities. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
(2009, under review). ‘I Used to Read Anything that Caught My Eye, But…’: Cultural Authority and Intermediaries in a Virtual Young Adult Book Club. In D. Rehberg Sedo (Ed.), From salons to cyberspace: Readings of reading communities. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
(2009, under review). With Fuller, D. & Squires, C. Marionettes and Puppeteers?: The relationship between book club readers and publishers. In Rehberg Sedo, D. (Ed.), From salons to cyberspace: Readings of reading communities. Toronto: University of Toronto.
REFEREED ENCYCLOPEDIA OR HISTORY ENTRIES
(2009, in press). Twentieth-and Twenty-first Century Literary Communities. History of the American Novel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
(2006). Reading and study groups. In C. Gerson & J. Michon (Eds.), History of the book in Canada (Vol. III). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
(2005). Case study: A Victoria immigrant’s reading–Introducing Margaret McMicking. In F. Black & Y. Lamonde (Eds.), History of the book in Canada (Vol. II). Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 470-481.
(2004). International Association of Business Communicators. In R. Heath (Ed.), Encyclopaedia of public relations. Thousand Oakes, CA: Sage Publications.
(2004). Measures/measuring. In R. Heath (Ed.), Encyclopaedia of public relations. Thousand Oakes, CA: Sage Publications.
(2004). Symbolic interactionism theory. In R. Heath (Ed.), Encyclopaedia of public relations. Thousand Oakes, CA: Sage Publications.
(2003). Book clubs and reading groups. In K. Christensen & D. Levinson (Eds.), Encyclopaedia of community: From the village to the virtual world (pp. 97-99). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
REFEREED JOURNAL ARTICLES
(2008). ‘“Richard & Judy’s Book Club” and “Canada Reads”: Readers, books and cultural programming in a digital era.’ Information, Communication and Society 11(2), 188 – 206.
(2008). With Rodrigues, D. ‘Experiencing Information Literacy in Second Life.’ Partnership: the Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research, vol. 3, no. 1.
(2006). With Fuller, D. A reading spectacle for the nation: The CBC and “Canada Reads”. Journal of Canadian Studies, 40(1), 5-36.
(2003). Readers in reading groups: An on-line survey of face-to-face and virtual book clubs. Convergence: The Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 9(1), 66-90.
NON-REFEREED JOURNAL ARTICLES/BOOK CHAPTERS
(2004). With Richards, T. Journalists and official sources. Media Magazine, 10(4), 18-19.
(1998). Gathering in the name of literature. The New Reader, 3(1), 46-48.
WORK IN PROGRESS
(2007, contracted). Badges of wisdom, spaces for being: Meaning making and making meaning in contemporary book clubs (working title). Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
With Fuller, D. Beyond the book: Mass reading events and contemporary cultures of reading in the USA, Canada and the UK.
REVIEWS
(2002). Book review: Fiction and the American literary marketplace: the role of newspaper syndicates, 1860-1900. JHISTORY@H-NET.MSU.EDU, List for discussion of history of journalism and mass communication. December 2, 2002, from http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~jhistory
(2002). Book review: A heretic in American journalism education and research: Malcolm S. MacLearn, Jr., Revisited edited by Luigi Manca and Gail W. Pieper. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 26(4), 109-112.
(2001). Book review: Global infatuation: Explorations in transnational publishing and texts, the case of Harlequin Enterprises and Sweden by Eva Hemmungs Wirtén. LOGOS, 12(3).
(1999.) Peer Review of history of public relations article submitted for Journal for Journalism Studies.
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS (Select presentations only)
October 2007a. The Librarian and Professor as Learners: Doing Participant Observation in Second Life. Paper co-presented with Rodrigues at the Association for Internet Researchers annual conference in Vancouver, BC.
October 2007b. ‘Richard & Judy’s Book Club’ and ‘Canada Reads’: Readers, Books and Cultural Programming in a Digital Era. Paper presented at the Association for Internet Researchers annual conference in Vancouver, BC.
October 2007c. Searching for good news about American literary culture: Questioning enclosure and emancipation in a nation-wide reading program. Paper presented at the Union for Democratic Communication annual conference in Vancouver, BC.
Dear Professor Sedo, my email to your dept address bounced back; I’m trying to contact you to offer you a writing assignment for the Cambridge University Press History of the American Novel. Please contact me at the address above. Thank you, Leonard Cassuto (Prof English, Fordham Univ)