Suchergebnisse

In response to the paper by Grob and colleagues, three aspects are highlighted. First, when analyzing the influence of history on the lives of different cohorts, it is necessary to differentiate between historical events and gradual historical change in aspects of social structure and norms. Second, the difference between 3rd person and 1st person acounts of lives (life histories vs. life stories) implies different conceptualizations of what a historical trend towards individualization implies. When analyzing life histories, individualization implies an increase in the diversity of life-courses, while when analyzing subjective conceptualizations of one's life, individualization implies a shift of values from traditional public and other-related concerns to self-related hedonistic concerns. This more psychological approach focuses on how self-understanding is influenced by historical context. Finally, an argument is made for undertaking more detailed analyses of life stories in terms of linguistic and formal properties, in terms of age, of hind- versus foresight, and of the pragmatics of the interviewing situation.

Abstract
This article addresses the topic of reading in the course of life. Its point of departure is the oral-history research carried out between 2009 and 2015 among 138 narrators (informants, respondents, interviewees) across the Czech Republic. The author presents its background, parameters as well as one of its general achievements-four moments of initiations on an axis of our reading life. The first of these takes the form of sociability (being accepted); the second-autonomy (mastering the skill); the third- maturity (being independent), the fourth-reflection (mirroring). What follows from this is the finding that reading undergoes continual development, whether a long continuity or a meandering chain of partial discontinuities. Thus, our oral history-based research shows that being open to the lifetime span provides us with a specific sensitivity towards reading, stressing mainly the fact of its being rooted in particular time-conditioned, life-motivated and purposive situations.