Academic Reading Challenge 2023

Hello friends and strangers,

It's December, and that means it's time to start planning for next year's academic reading challenge.  For those who are unfamiliar with online reading challenges, this challenge gives you a list of categories and you find books to fit the categories based on your interests. This year, our Facebook group came up with a great list of categories after brainstorming about 22 proposed categories and then narrowing down to 18. To fill those categories, feel free to pick from what's already on your shelf, what you've long meant to read but haven't, what crosses your path, etc. In this case, one choice will literally be a book that crosses your path - "a book you saw someone reading in public." I have a feeling people in cities with robust rail transit are going to have an easier time finding things in that category than a lot of USians, but don't worry: if the end of the year is rolling around, you can count something you saw someone post about on social media (details below). This is the 9th year I've run this challenge, and we're still a small group, but every year a few more people join in. People who do it really enjoy it, and it is possible, if you're an academic and worried about research time, to incorporate books you actually need to read for work into your list. Think of the challenge as a little extra inspiration to pull something off your TBR that's been maturing there for too long. Sometimes a category may get you to read something for work that you wouldn't have thought was relevant otherwise. This isn't a competition, and no one is judging. We have 18 categories, but you can read as much or as little as you want. We also have a spreadsheet that you can fill out with what you've read as the year goes on, so you can see what others are reading and draw inspiration from there. We also have a facebook group. 
 In this group we talk about the challenge categories for the year and occasionally discuss what we've read and plan to read. There is also an academic article about this challenge that I wrote for a collection on the "slow movement" in academia. 

In honor of strangers reading books together, possibly seeing each other reading books "across a crowded room," or even just finding a wonderful book that once, strange to you, will later "sing in your dreams" here's Paul Robeson singing "Some Enchanted Evening" 

Who and What the Academic Reading Challenge is for: 

This is a challenge for academics who feel that their reading has become over-specialized and possibly joyless, who want to read more literature for pleasure, who want to broaden the way they approach their own research and teaching, who like to talk about reading with each other, who are interested in interdisciplinary reading, and who want to support their friends and colleagues by reading their books. You don’t have to be a professor to do the challenge. Maybe you graduated from school but you miss reading academic books. The challenge runs for a year and emphasizes reading across academic disciplines. If you are a professional academic or public intellectual outside the university, this challenge is meant to give you a structure for reading outside your area of specialization - including reading literature - and to provide a space to talk with others about the experience. If you are a general reader who likes reading serious works of non-fiction, this challenge is also for you. It's a structure that you can use to read works of the type that you might not have encountered since you were a student.

 Rules 

The challenge starts on January 1, 2023 at midnight and goes till Dec. 31, 2023. 

There are a total of 15 regular categories in the challenge, and three “extra credit” categories for over-achievers. 

 The academic books must be at least 175 pages long . 

Novels must be at least 200 pages long 

Books of poetry or special issues of journals must be at least 100 pp. long 

One book can be a children's or YA book. 

To decide whether a book is academic, look for something published by a university press, or check the acknowledgments for references to scholarly mentors and anonymous readers. 

 Any book on the list, except where specified otherwise, can be a novel or a complete journal issue as long as it fits the general category 

Books can only count for one category, but you can switch them from one category to the other before you’re done if you like. (In other words, you cannot count a book by your friend who wrote a book on grief for both the "academic book about grief" and the "by a friend" categories.) 

Only one book can be something you’ve read before 

Audiobooks are fine as long as they are unabridged and the print edition is at least 175 pages long. Books must be started no earlier than midnight 1/1/23 and finished no later midnight 12/31/2023

 Points: This isn't a competition, but if you're counting… 

Total possible points for 1-15 without any extra points: 200 

Total possible points for all extra-credit: 250 

This Year's Categories with points:

 1. Book by a friend, colleague, former teacher or former student 10 

 2. A literary classic 10 

 3. An adaptation of a literary classic  (double points if you read an adaptation of the same book you read for  category 2) 10,20

 4. A book about the natural environment that draws on academic research (can be fiction or non-fiction, academic or non-academic) 20 

 5. A book about care-giving for humans or non-human animals 10 

 6.A book that, when written, was set in the future, which is now a date in the past (for ex, Looking Backward, 1984) 10 

 7.  A book by someone who was a refugee, exile, or asylum seeker 10 

 8. An academic book originally written in a language other than English  20

 9. A book about fashion (any aspect, including hair and/or make-up, the garment industry, etc. Can include biographies) 20 

 10.  A book about anti-fascism or other opposition to the far-right 20 

 11.  A book about grief  10 

 12. A book about something considered “low brow” or “kitsch” 10 

 13. A book about anti-Semitism 10

 14. A book about sound, hearing and/or about hearing loss (could be sound studies, musicology, scientific analysis of hearing/deafness, about the deaf community)  20 

 15. A book about colonialism and/or empire 10 

 EXTRA CREDIT: 

16:  Extra-Credit: A book you saw someone reading in public (if it’s getting close to December 2023, and you still haven’t seen someone out reading in the world, this can be a book you saw on a social media post, but it should be by an ordinary person & preferably not someone you know) 20 

17.  Extra-Extra-Credit  :A play 10 

18.  Super-Duper Extra Credit:  A book about, or set in, Scandinavia 10