John Guillory is the Julius Silver Professor of English at New York University. He is the author of Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation and Professing Criticism: Essays on the Organization of Literary Study, both also published by the University of Chicago Press. Scott Newstok is professor of English and executive director of the Spence Wilson Center for Interdisciplinary Humanities at Rhodes College. He is the author of How to Think like Shakespeare and the editor of several books, including the forthcoming How to Teach Children, a volume of Montaigne’s essays on education. His closereadingarchive.org documents what scholars have written about close reading from the prehistory of modern literary studies to the present.

“On Close Reading is destined to become a classic. Guillory offers a fresh account of the practice of close reading and its place in the work of academic literary critics. On Close Reading mounts a powerful argument for viewing technique as a form of knowledge—that is, as a form of science.”

• PrefaceOn Close Reading—The Rise and Rise of Close Reading—Toward a General Theory of Reading—Techné, Technique, Technology—Close Reading as Technique—Showing the Work of Reading—Coda: On Attention to LiteratureAnnotated Bibliography, by Scott NewstokAcknowledgmentsIndex

John Guillory is the Julius Silver Professor of English at New York University. He is the author of Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation and Professing Criticism: Essays on the Organization of Literary Study, both also published by the University of Chicago Press. Scott Newstok is professor of English and executive director of the Spence Wilson Center for Interdisciplinary Humanities at Rhodes College. He is the author of How to Think like Shakespeare and the editor of several books, including the forthcoming How to Teach Children, a volume of Montaigne’s essays on education. His closereadingarchive.org documents what scholars have written about close reading from the prehistory of modern literary studies to the present.

“On Close Reading is destined to become a classic. Guillory offers a fresh account of the practice of close reading and its place in the work of academic literary critics. On Close Reading mounts a powerful argument for viewing technique as a form of knowledge—that is, as a form of science.”

• PrefaceOn Close Reading—The Rise and Rise of Close Reading—Toward a General Theory of Reading—Techné, Technique, Technology—Close Reading as Technique—Showing the Work of Reading—Coda: On Attention to LiteratureAnnotated Bibliography, by Scott NewstokAcknowledgmentsIndex