‘Close reading’ of texts has become a central activity of humanities pedagogy and is carried out across different levels of education and through a number of disciplines. The analysis of texts as part of educational practice is sometimes claimed to be a very recent phenomenon, attendant on the formulation of the idea of the text in the early 1960s (Lotman, 1964; Barthes, 1977 [1964]) and, slightly earlier, in the English tradition, with respect to exercises in ‘practical criticism’ (Richards, 1929; Empson, 1930). On the other hand, close reading is associated with a much older tradition dating back to the inception of scriptural exegesis. While educators attempt to inculcate practices of active interpretation, close reading's adherents and advocates often recognize that procedures of close reading can become ossified into routine acts of identifying invariants of textual functioning at the expense of enabling students to intensify and articulate a more engaged relation with the text. In an age of Big Data, statistical analysis and instrumentalization of Higher Education, the intimacy of close reading as a practice is in question.

Through survey methods, the research presented here sought to ask what methods of analysis are used in respect of texts in different disciplines, what practices are identified as close reading, what procedures are followed and whether they are common across disciplines, what theoretical, methodological and historiographical frameworks sustain these practices and what educational ethos might be in play. This article will discuss some of the results, not least of which is the finding that the commitment to close reading as a central feature of humanities education does not seem to have waned in the last century, but neither has it reconceptualised reading as anything other than a cerebral exercise in apprehending ‘meaning’ or in developing a disembodied skill. The article briefly contrasts these findings, suggesting a rhetoric of embodiment, mediating the demands for both distance and proximity in reading, as an area for future inquiry.

对文本的“近距离阅读”已成为人文教育学的核心活动，并且在不同层次的教育中以及通过许多学科进行。作为教育实践的一部分，对文本的分析有时被认为是一种很新的现象，伴随着在1960年代初期（Lotman，1964； Barthes，1977 [1964]）提出了文本的思想，而在更早的时期，在英国传统中，关于“实践批评”中的练习（Richards，1929； Empson，1930）。另一方面，近距离阅读与可追溯到圣经释经开始的更古老的传统有关。在教育者尝试灌输主动解释的实践的同时，仔细阅读' 信奉者和拥护者常常认识到，近距离阅读的程序可能会僵化为识别文本功能不变性的例行行为，以使学生加强和阐明与文本之间更紧密的联系为代价。在大数据，高等教育的统计分析和工具化时代，近距离阅读作为一种实践的亲密性值得怀疑。

通过调查方法，此处提出的研究试图询问针对不同学科的文本使用哪种分析方法，哪些实践被认为是近距离阅读，遵循哪些程序以及它们是否在各个学科之间通用，在理论上，方法上和方法上是否相同。历史学框架支持这些做法以及可能发挥的教育精神。本文将讨论一些结果，其中最重要的发现是，在上个世纪，以封闭阅读为人文教育中心特征的承诺似乎并没有减弱，但也没有将阅读重新概念化为其他内容。理解“含义”或发展无形技能的大脑锻炼。这篇文章简要对比了这些发现，表明了体现的言辞，