Reading Marathons as Civic Repair

Large, public long‑form reading events (e.g., a 25‑hour public Moby‑Dick reading) act like civic rituals: they concentrate shared attention, transmit local historical memory, and create cross‑class social ties that outlast the event. Unlike solitary reading, these marathons produce visible cultural infrastructure—tourism, volunteer networks, and guardianship of communal narratives—that can help counter presentism and rebuild local civic capacity. — If cities and cultural funders treat such events as public‑goods, they can strengthen social cohesion, preserve contested histories, and offer a low‑cost lever for civic repair in polarized times.