Originally a euphemism for Princeton University's Female Literary Traditioncourse in the 1980s, ""chick lit"" mutated from a movement in American women'savant-garde fiction in the 1990s to become, by the turn of the century, a humorous subset of women's literature, journalism, and advice manuals. Stephanie Harzewski examines such best sellers as Bridget Jones's Diary, The Devil Wears Prada, and Sex and the City as urban appropriations of and departures from the narrative traditions of the novel of manners, the popular romance, and the bildungsroman. Further, Harzewski uses chick lit as a lens through which to view gender relations in U.S. and British society in the 1990s. Chick Lit and Postfeminism is the first sustained historicization of this major pop-cultural phenomenon, and Harzewski successfully demonstrates how chick lit and the critical study of ityield social observations on upheavals in Anglo-American marriage and education patterns, heterosexual rituals, feminism, and postmodern values.

About the Author
Stephanie Harzewski is Lecturer in the Department of English at the University of New Hampshire.

Reviews
Chick Lit and Postfeminism is certain to advance the study of chick lit and add depth and sophistication to our understanding of its origins and development.- Suzanne Ferris, Professor of English at Nova Southeastern University, and Mallory Young, Professor of English at Tarleton State University, Editors of Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction/i>, Chick Flicks: Contemporary Women at the Movies;

""Chick Lit and Postfeminism's perspective on this relatively understudied genre competently assess how chick lit intertwines women, consumption, and romance in mutually enticing ways and explains how contemporary socioeconomic norms have provided fertile ground for such associations.""- Suzanne Leonard, Assistant Professor of English, Simmons College, Contemporary Women's Writing;

""Chick Lit and Postfeminism is both extremely smart and extremely clear, an all-too rare combination in academia. Harzewski treats the subject seriously and in-depth, but also with a sense of humor, of lightness, recognizing both that the genre is massively popular and influential and also that it is ideologically complex.""- Robert A. Rushing, Associate Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Author of Resisting Arrest: Detective Fiction and Popular Culture;

""The explosion of a new type of novel by and for women- dubbed, for better or worse,'chick lit'- has provoked much controversy in the mainstream press and in the literary world. Despite all the commotion over the works by the latest mob of 'damned scribbling women,' as Nathaniel Hawthorne called women writers of the nineteenth century, little scholarly attention has focused on these texts. Harzewski's is one of the first full-length studies devoted to chick lit, and the most wide-ranging to date. Chick Lit and Postfeminism is written in a clear, readable style and is a solid book that will be read with interest and no doubt taken up and debated.""- Tania Modleski, University of Southern California, author of Feminism without Women: Culture and Criticism in a ""Postfeminist"" Age;

""Like Carrie Bradshaw in her Manolo Blahniks, Chick Lit and Postfeminism steps out in style. Smart, thoughtful, and well-written, it offers a historical understanding of this decidedly postfeminist genre, while offering insight into contemporary gender politics and femininity.""- Janet McCabe, Birkbeck, University of London, and coeditor of Reading Sex and the City;

""Chick Lit and Postfeminism is a bold and fascinating exploration of the 'most culturally visible form of postfeminist fiction'- chick lit. Demanding and sometimes dizzying in its range and readings, the book moors the genre in the commodified context of women's lives in the twenty-first century, refashioning our understanding of this irreverent, ubiquitous, and (contrary to popular belief) important genre of fiction.""- Mary Bly Eloisa James, Fordham University, New York Times best-selling author



Book Information
ISBN 9780813930725
Author Stephanie Harzewski
Format Paperback
Page Count 264
Imprint University of Virginia Press
Publisher University of Virginia Press
Weight(grams) 365g