Glossary of Literary Theory by Greig E. Henderson and Christopher Brown

Constance School of Reception Aesthetics:

A form of reader-response theory associated with the works of Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser, both of whom are faculty members at the University of Constance, Germany. Both a reception aesthetic and a reception history, this theory examines how readers realize the potentials of a text and how readings change over the course of history. (See also Implied reader, Reader-response criticism, Reception theory.)