Central College's Kate Nesbit Hosts Writers Reading of New Book: Willful Listeners

Kate Nesbit, Central College associate professor of English, will release her book, "Willful Listeners," on Monday, Nov. 2. The book is a cultural and literary history of domestic reading aloud.

Subtitled as "reading aloud and the politics of attention from Austen to audiobooks," Nesbit reframes the Victorian practice of reading aloud by centering the experiences of listeners - particularly those who resisted, ignored or subverted the activity. Rather than romanticizing reading aloud as an idealized domestic ritual or tool for moral instruction, Nesbit examines it as a complex social practice deeply entangled with power dynamics and questions of attention.

Through vivid examples of distracted laborers, sleeping women and eavesdropping children, she argues that these listening scenes reveal much about Victorian society's hierarchies: who was expected to listen, whose voices commanded authority and how attention itself functioned as a marker of social status. Ultimately, the book presents a history of the audiobook and its audience before modern sound recording existed, demonstrating that the tension between speaker and listener has long been a site where social inequalities were negotiated and contested.

Nesbit will read from her new book during the next Writers Reading at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 4, Fireside Room in Graham Conference Center. The author invites all for an evening of celebrating literature and creative writing on campus. Light refreshments will be provided.