Join us in welcoming literary critic John Guillory. At a time of debate about the future of “English” as a discipline and the fundamental methods of literary study, few terms appear more frequently than “close reading,” now widely regarded as the core practice of literary study. But what exactly is close reading, and where did it come from? Guillory explains in a fascinating lecture.

John Guillory is the Julius Silver Professor of English at New York University. He is the author of Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation and Professing Criticism: Essays on the Organization of Literary Study, both published by the University of Chicago Press.