Chick lit is the marketing label attributed to a surge of books published in the wake of Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary (1996) and Candace Bushnell's Sex and the City (1997). Branded by their pink or pastel-coloured book covers, chick-lit vels have been a highly successful and ubiquitous product of women's popular culture since the late 1990s. This study traces the evolution of chick lit t only as a genre of popular fiction, but as a cultural phemen. It complicates the genealogy of the texts by situating them firmly in the context of age-old debates about female literary creation, and by highlighting the dynamics of the popular-fiction market. Offering a convincing dissection of the formula which lies at the heart of chick lit, as well as in-depth analyses of a number of chick-lit titles ranging from classic to more recent and edgier texts, this book yields new insights into a relatively young field of academic study. Its close readings provide astute assessments of chick lit's toriously skewed representational politics, especially with regard to sexuality and ethnicity, which feed into current discussions about postfeminism. Moreover, the study makes a unique contribution to the scholarly debate of chick lit by including an analysis of the (online) fan communities the genre has fostered. The Cultural Politics of Chick Lit weaves a sound methodological network, drawing on reader-response criticism; feminist, gender, and queer theory; affect studies; and whiteness studies. This book is an accessible and engaging study for anyone interested in postfeminism and popular culture.
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Routledge, Taylor & Francis Ltd
ISBN-10
1138648248
ISBN-13
9781138648241
eBay Product ID (ePID)
223668746
Product Key Features
Author
Heike Missler
Format
Hardback
Language
English
Subject
Literary Criticism
Type
Textbook
Dimensions
Weight
454g
Height
229mm
Width
152mm
Additional Product Features
Place of Publication
London
Spine
18mm
Series Title
Routledge Studies in Contemporary Literature
Author Biography
Heike Missler is a Senior Lecturer at the English Department of Saarland University, Germany, where she has recently completed her PhD on postfeminist fiction. Her research interests are feminist theory, gender and queer studies, and popular culture studies.