Reading Guidelines
I always tell anyone who will entertain my yapping that we should read theory similarly to how we listen to music.
Remember when I confessed that no one taught me how to write as a graduate student? Well, no one taught me how to read either (rip).
Literature turned me into a lover of theory. Growing up, my mom nicknamed my room “The Library” because I had books crammed into every corner—on shelves, stacked on my dresser and desk, and even in piles on the floor. No one doubted I was always reading, but no one ever taught me how to read. Across genres, books have always been a fountain for my endless thirst for knowledge. While my personal library reflects my appreciation for various branches of knowledge, I can’t say my academic reading has always been pleasurable.
Reading for pleasure, I let myself be completely consumed by the text; fully immersed by the story being narrated, I’m endlessly captivated by the way people weave words into art, how just 26 letters can be arranged to craft something so profoundly moving. There’s an enchantment in the polished flow of language—a rhythm and elegance that leaves me in awe, reminding me of the boundless creativity within such a finite set of tools.
Reading for class? Yikes. Sometimes, I struggle — hard. Now, I haven’t mastered it by any means, but I’ve started to enjoy the process of learning how to approach academic texts. Still, I can’t help but think that a bit of guidance earlier on could have saved me from so many “Wow, I feel so stupid” moments.
That’s why I want to grow the “No one told me this! Oh, fucking DUH!” category. Here, I’ll share the steps and strategies I’ve learned to approach academic reading more intentionally. Most of these things feel obvious once you know them but aren’t always explained. My goal here is to demystify the process and make navigating academic texts feel, well, pleasurable because reading is fun.
Stay reading,
diotimaology
On reading for pleasure: guidelines — books
On reading for pleasure: guidelines — academic journals
