Rereading Reconsidered: Toward a media-expanded model of the lifelong reading act

Description

In this paper, I expand Waller’s model to account for the digital, offering a theoretical intervention into mediated narrative return across the lifespan. Building on Louise Rosenblatt’s concept of the “reading act”, Waller suggests:

Remembering and rereading […] are not distinct from the reading act, but represent integrated elements that function on a micro level in each tangible, phenomenological encounter with a text, and on a macro level every time that text is conjured up through conscious reminiscence, involuntary memory, rereading projects or shared discourses about childhood books. (2019: 5)

While this model accurately captures the recursive nature of reading and textual engagement, it does not account for the contemporary experience informed by algorithmic and aesthetic affordances of platforms and ideologies of the larger digital landscape. The present paper attempts to fill this gap by drawing on media studies and postdigital aesthetics, adding an important dimension to the study of literature across the lifespan.

I operationalize the media-expanded model of the lifelong reading act via the aforementioned example of The Summer I Turned Pretty. The analysis traces how the novels in relation to TikTok commentary, soundtrack nostalgia, and the adaptation itself produce complex, overlapping, and technologically mediated temporalities of narrative return. In doing so, this paper demonstrates how rereading as a narrative practice highlights broader negotiations of memory and temporality across the lifespan in the digital age.

Period	12 Dec 2025
Event title	BAAHE Conference 2025 - Language and literature across the lifespan
Event type	Conference
Location	Namur, BelgiumShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International