Abstract

This article inquires into what sort of socioemotional education and conviviality are produced when pleasurable literary reading is encouraged in neoliberal cultures. We critically explore the celebration of reading for socioemotional education as it is produced in official government documents distributed to schools in Chile. Assisted by Sara Ahmed’s conceptualisation of the cultural politics of emotions and Chantal Mouffe’s agonistic theory, we highlight how literary reading is promoted as a tool to manage difference and resolve conflict. We relate the hopes set on reading to a celebratory cult of happiness in which structural injustices are erased. © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.