Theory and Practice of Reception Study

<p>This book examines novels of Faulkner and Morrison as well as Mark Twain and Ralph Ellison in order to show that their works forcefully undermine the racial and sexual divisions characterizing both the South and contemporary culture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Moreover the book discusses theories of reader-response and reception study and elaborates a theory of reception study based on the historical or archeological methods of Michel Foucault. As a consequence unlike most studies of American literature which discuss its historical contexts or prescribe its readers’ responses this book explains the reception of these works including the academic criticism and reviews and because the internet exerts immense influence in the twenty-first century the on-line responses of ordinary readers. Unlike most reception studies this book examines the institutional contexts of the readers’ responses. </p>