Empirical study of literature explained

The empirical study of literature is an interdisciplinary field of research which includes the psychology, sociology, and philosophy of texts, the contextual study of literature, and the history of reading literary texts.

The International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature and Media (IGEL) is one learned association which brings together experts in this field. Major journals in the field are Poetics: Journal of Empirical Research on Culture, the Media and the Arts,^[1] ,^[2] and Scientific Study of Literature.^[3]

The empirical study of literature attracts scholarship particularly in the areas of reception and audience studies and in cognitive psychology when it is concerned with questions of reading. In these two areas research and studies based on the framework are steadily growing. Further fields where the framework in various revised and expanded versions attracts scholarship is (comparative) cultural studies and pedagogy.

Further reading

• Bourdieu, Pierre. "Questions of Method." Empirical Studies of Literature. Ed. Elrud Ibsch, Dick Schram, and Gerard Steen. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1991. 19-36.
• Schmidt, Siegfried J. Foundation for the Empirical Study of Literature: The Components of a Basic Theory. Trans. R. de Beaugrande. Hamburg: Helmut Buske, 1982.
• Schmidt, Siegfried J. "Literary Studies from Hermeneutics to Media Culture Studies." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 12.1 (2010): https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol12/iss1/1
• Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven. "The Empirical Science of Literature / Constructivist Theory of Literature." Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory: Approaches, Scholars, Terms. Ed. Irene R. Makaryk. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1993. 36-39.

Bibliographies

• Lisiak, Agata Anna, and Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek. "Bibliography of Siegfried J. Schmidt's Publications." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 12.1 (2010)https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol12/iss1/9
• Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven. "Bibliography of Contextual (Systemic and Empirical) Approaches in the Study of Literature and Culture (to 1998)." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 3.3 (2001)https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol3/iss3/7

Notes and References

1. Web site: Poetics. Publisher's Website.
2. Web site: Poetics Today. Publisher's Website.
3. Web site: SSOL. Publisher's Website.