Jürgen Pieters

Shared Reading as a Form of Collective Bibliotherapy

Jürgen Pieters

Ghent University / CHARM

jurgen.pieters@ugent.Be

In this paper I want to correlate the methodology of Shared Reading (as developed by Jane Davis in the context of the Reader Organisation) to a number of central ideas in recent publications on bibliotherapy. My take on the latter topic is influenced by Marc-Alain Ouaknin's 1994 book on the topic, in which bibliotherapy is seen as a reading practice that aligns itself with the existential hermeneutics of writers like Paul Ricoeur and Hans-Georg Gadamer. This hermeneutic approach, I want to suggest, differs substantially from more popular versions of bibliotherapy which center around the prescription of feel-good literature.

BIOGRAPHY

Jürgen Pieters is a professor of literary theory at Ghent University, Belgium, where he teaches courses on literary theory, the history of poetics and literature and care. His most recent book publication is Literature and Consolation. Fictions of Comfort (Edinburgh University Press, 2021). He is currently working on a new book on the use of literary writings in different contexts of care and self-care. He is also the director of the international network CHARM - Consortium of Health Humanities, Arts, Reading and Medicine.