Collective close reading (CCR) as a method for interpreting cultural text

This chapter examines the technique of collective close reading (CCR) as a means of analysing cultural texts such as novels, films and other pervasive forms of narrative in culture. Building upon the close read from literary theory, collective close reading contains several steps that involve integrating research team members’ individual scrutiny of their connection to a text, their understanding of that text in culture and their close read of the narrative itself. We demonstrate the type of output that can result from CCR by articulating our use of this method when analysing what continues to make the 1938 Daphne du Maurier novel Rebecca compelling to contemporary readers.