Protocols of Reading

Discussing a wide range of literary theory in a clear and accessible way, prize-winning author Robert Scholes here continues his ongoing construction of a humane semiotic approach to the problems of reading, writing, and teaching.  Taking the view that “all the world’s a text,” Scholes considers numerous texts from life and literature, including photographs, paintings, and television commercials as well as biographies and novels.

“A significant and thoughtful effort to think about the responsibilities of reading in the wake of deconstruction.”—Choice

“Protocols of Reading is a personal, avuncular book, attractive in its common sense and brevity.”—Wendy Steiner, Times Literary Supplement

“A complex argument developed in delightful plain English, Protocols of Reading sees both textual fundamentalism and deconstructive debunking as needful opposites in an oscillation that Scholes labels nihilistic hermeneutics.  Fine-tuning this oscillation is what the humanistic enterprise is all about, he suggests; it is our key to the true connection between reading and ethics.”—Richard A. Lanham, University of California, Los Angeles

Robert Scholes, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Humanities at Brown University, is also the author of Textual Power: Literary Theory and the Teaching of English; Semiotics and Interpretation; and Structuralism in Literature: An Introduction

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