When The World Disappears: reflections on the future of reading(s)

Abstract

This paper proposes a reflection on the different ways of reading and knowing based on comparisons between different means of expression and reading. Taking studies on reading as well as modes of subjective entanglement of different times and contrasting them to some modern and contemporary scholars and writers, the paper focuses on discussing the boundary between the sensible world and its representation, in order to contribute to a more critical appropriation of media resources by the educational system. The main argument poses itself from the premise that, in face of the concealment of reality by contemporary media, it is more than ever the task of education to preserve the possibilities to learn and to grasp from the discomforts of the real.