SOURCE: "Nous Autres: Reading, Passion, and the Creation of M. Carey Thomas," in The Journal of American History, Vol. 79, No. 1, June, 1992, pp. 68-95.

In the following essay, Horowitz explores the ways in which Thomas "created herself" through her reading of romantic literature, and in so doing challenged accepted ideas of a woman's private identity and same-sex love.

What does it mean to read? Does an author fill readers with a text, etching impressions on the blank slates of their minds? Or do readers shape a text, giving it content and meaning to suit their bents and instincts? As reader-response theorists engage in this new version of the philosophical debate between John Locke and Immanuel Kant, something critical is being lost. Although reading is a varied activity taking different forms on different occasions, some reading can be as dynamic as personal conflict. Texts are not infinitely plastic, capable of...