ABSTRACT
Not long ago, as we met to compose questions for a PhD examination in literary theory, a colleague raised the question that has become our title. He raised it (somewhat) whimsically-as a query about institutional history, prompting the candidate to explain why reader-response criticism1 is rarely mentioned by that name in contemporary conversations. Although the examinee chose to answer one of the other questions on the exam, we found ourselves pondering that one: what, indeed has happened to the emphasis on reading that we found so exciting in the seventies and eighties?
