Reading as Askēsis

Abstract

Drawing on the work of Simone Weil, this article argues that the human purpose of reading is the creation of meaning through interpretive activity. In the context of institutionalized schooling, however, the activity of reading has been alienated from this purpose. As a result, some contemporary pedagogies of reading might keep us from learning how to undertake the work necessary to hone and sharpen our interpretations, and thereby render our world increasingly lucid and coherent. Here, Rachel Longa proposes that the paradigm of spiritual practice might provide the theoretical resources for a corrective to this alienation. It could help us to reconfigure the dominant form of the activity of reading such that its human purpose is foregrounded and championed, rather than obscured. The concept of askēsis could thereby serve as a lifeline that tethers us to the forms of life from which we derive purpose and that orients us toward the ends of ethical self‐formation.