Activity: Talk or presentation types › Oral presentation
Description
An interactive public talk given at the Marion Cultural Centre.
Why Read Novels? This is not so much a question to deter or enlist readers, but rather, an attempt to look into the practice of reading fiction from a philosophy-of-literature perspective. Apparently, Australians very much like to read. According to a recent 2017 study at Macquarie University, entitled Reading the reader: A survey of Australian reading habits, reading comes third as a leisure activity after television and the internet, and wins over creative craft, exercise, playing sport, and creative art. In this talk, Todd Dearing (PhD Candidate in English at Flinders University) will look at the results of this survey as a launching point for discussion on the role of narrative, imagination, and concepts of truth in reading fiction, and will outline some of the potential benefits of reading novels for personal and cultural development.