what is a close reading?

I feel like it would have been helpful for me to be in class last week to have a bit more understanding of something that I thought I knew about. What is a close reading? From reading Anne's course notes, and all the articles that reject close readings as something that can be intersectional (if I understood correctly), I found that it contradicts my understanding of close readings and how I like to use them. For me, close readings lets you assume things that are not explicitly written (but also most of what I remember learning about close readings was about paintings and photography, visual art forms, so maybe that's why I have a different understanding.). So I might read a paragraph about a hair salon, and from the types of words the author uses, and how they use them, I might make connections about how the author views women or businesses. Similarly, it seems, I would be able to read a paragraph about a character and draw conclusions about their life or their viewpoints outside of just what they're talking about. Which can be helpful for intersectionality because a character doesn't need to be talking about race or class or whatever in order for me to draw conclusions about those topics. 

Something that I've been thinking about while reading this book was how I would do a close reading of Dill. I was thinking about Dill in the barber shop, and how that dynamic played out. Compared to Billy in the beauty salon. Even the names of these places says so much. And the types of things that were used to indicate what it meant to be a man, like having a woman, having a car, having a little bit of change. And in my understanding of a close reading you could look at those things and make broader assumptions about the characters and their situations.