Reading Postcolonial Literature - From Professional to Non-Professional Practices

An Open Access edition will be available on publication thanks to the kind sponsorship of the libraries participating in the Jisc Open Access Community Framework OpenUP initiative. Debates about reading in postcolonial studies rarely discuss non-professional readers, except to secure the authority of professional reading practices. In Reading Postcolonial Literature, Hayley G. Toth places non-professional reading practices in dialogue with received academic wisdom to debunk common-sense assumptions about non-professional readers as -western- or -neo-colonial- consumers. Drawing on reading practices recorded in academic books, journal articles and on online book-reviewing platforms like Amazon and Goodreads, Toth draws attention to important continuities between professional and non-professional practices of reading postcolonial literature. At the same time, she highlights that non-professionals often have little desire to emulate the practices of professional postcolonial critics. Prec