O orgulho de ser leitor em confissões envergonhadas do que (não) se leu

Abstract

This Course Conclusion Paper (CCP) stems from our work as Scientific Initiation research (FAPESP 2023/11570-4 and ICTSR-UFSCar/769-2022) and TT1 technical fellow (FAPESP 2022/05271-1) on the project “Proud readers, ashamed readers: emotions in discourses about reading” (FAPESP 2020/03615-0). As technical fellow, we participated in the collective survey of data searched in the digital collections of “Folha de São Paulo” and “Estado de São Paulo”, between 2010 and 2022, which resulted in the current corpus of 1.620 enunciates, from which we selected the enunciates analyzed in this TCC. To compose this corpus, we organized the datas into 5 (five) categories of enunciates, according to the type of emotion materialized in them: 1) reader proud of himself (820 enunciates), 2) reader with others' pride (441 enunciates), 3) reader ashamed of himself (12 enunciates), 4) reader with others' shame (190 enunciates) and 5) reader whose proud derives from declarations of initially shameful practices, such as by refusing to read a certain writer or work or whose shame occurs when he recognizes that he is not as good a reader as he should be (157 enunciates). In this TCC, we have dedicated ourselves to analyzing enunciates from the 5th category, which, although they seem to refer to something that one should be ashamed of when talking about oneself as a reader, the effect of meaning produced is precisely that of the proud expression in relation to their reading condition, since this “confession” demonstrates demonstrates the affiliation of this subject, in general, who performs functions in the intellectual field and who has cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1999), to the socioculturally validated discourses and representations of what it is to be a reader. Therefore, we aim to reflect on the ways in which these emotions, pride and shame, are materialized, as enunciated by subjects whose statements led us to classify them in this 5th category, and who work as writers, literary critics, columnists, journalists, publishing house owners, teachers, actors, librarians, musicians, and so forth. When they enunciate the shame related to what they have read, how they have read it and what they have not yet read, these enunciators legitimize and reiterate discourses that establish which practices are worthy of “pride” and who should generally be awarded the title of ideal reader (Curcino, 2020), even when they confess to not reading. Given the complexity, variety and ambiguity of some of them, the 157 enunciates of the 5th category were distributed among 16 subcategories of different representations of reader profiles. Based on their linguistic regularities and discursive formations, we analyzed and described prototypical and representative statements of each of the subcategories, in order to understand the subjects' affiliation to the socio-culturally validated discourses and representations of what it is to be a reader. Considering that it is not by any means that subjects evoke shame or pride when stating what they have read, how they have read it, or what they have not yet read, in these statements that we have analyzed, these enunciators legitimize and reiterate discourses that establish which reading practices are worthy and unworthy, considering the order of discourse that rewards some, while others are punished, since reading is a privilege and the book has a distinctive value between the ruling class and the lower classes. In this analysis of what is generally said about reading, we rely on some principles of Discourse Analysis, based on Michel Foucault, the Cultural History of Reading, according to Roger Chartier, the Sociology of Cultural Distinction according to Pierre Bourdieu and the History of Sensibilities, of emotions, as it has been treated by Jean-Jacques Courtine, in addition to the analysis and reflections that have been conducted on reading by Brazilian researchers, such as Possenti (1999; 2001), Abreu (2001; 2008) and Curcino (2016; 2019; 2022; 2024).