Lire avec soin

How to think about the experience of reading texts, but also reading people and situations, abstract paintings and audio files? What kind of communication and what conception of sociality is implied in such a reading? Etymology teaches us that reading is the picking of plants for the composition of remedies. We could say that reading is part of a social therapeutics that both ancient and recent approaches to care can help us understand. Reading is not only a deciphering of signs; it must be part of a history of media and a theory of justice. If justice is not simply a legal relationship, and can be conceived as a way of taking care of people, then reading implies a kind of friendship as a social bond. This model of care can be used to rethink critique and judgement, considered as part of a politics of transmission.