Burning at the Edges: Judith P. Robertson and the Provocations of Reading

Abstract

In the writings of curriculum and literary theorist Judith P. Robertson, we encounter the stirrings of a language that often refers to something outside of the material heart of reading, yet essential to its very operations. There is something that "burns" at reading's edges, a desire that the encounter of reading awakes, provokes, and inspires. This paper examines these implications of Robertson's writings, paying particular attention to her considerations of reading as a social experience, as an erotic and embodied activity, as a gathering of the psychic and physical worlds of the reader, and as a function of travelling and landscape.