Touching from a Distance: Close Reading Now

Touching from a Distance: Close Reading and Looking Now asks what it means to pay genuine critical attention to texts, art objects, and media in the twenty-first century. Close reading and close looking, central to English Literature and History of Art and widely practised across the arts and humanities, are increasingly represented and reframed as a range of things: fading skills, teachable methods, resistant gestures, passé ‘formalist’ techniques, or conservative modes of approaching ‘the text’ now eclipsed by more fashionable critical tools. Close reading is having a moment. To that end, this Research Strand facilitated a one-day symposium at York (Friday 15th May 2026) to explore the acts of close reading and close looking, asking what they enable, considering their historical roots, and reflecting on their contemporary ‘reinventions’. Bringing together colleagues from across the arts and humanities at York and beyond for a day of shared attentional practice, we had contributions from eleven speakers from York, York St John, University College London, University of Durham, and Peterhouse, University of Cambridge, and 25-30 attendees from literature, art history, philosophy, and the creative arts.