Bridget Jones, Prince Charming, and Happily Ever Afters: Chick Lit as an Extension of the Fairy Tale in a Postfeminist Society

unpublishednot peer reviewe

A model of romance fiction search behavior

This poster describes a preliminary model of romance fiction search behavior based on grounded theory inspired interviews with avid romance readers. The model is composed of three elements: contextual factors, search goals, and selection strategies. The portrayed behavior characteristics and associations among contexts, goals, and strategies are based on at least one participant mention in our interview. We will continue to expand and verify the model in the following investigation with a hope to construct a theoretically and empirically sound model to analytically represent romance fiction readers' information and search behavior

The Beauty and the Barrister: Gender Roles, Madness, and the Basis for Identity in Lady Audley\u27s Secret

This thesis examines the concept of identity in the novel Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. In the mid to late Victorian period, self-definition was strongly tied to gender roles. Men were expected to be mentally active, physical strong, and morally guiding leaders of society, and women were to be their passive, pious, domestically minded followers. These expectations for behavior were so strong that those breaking them were in danger of being considered insane. In Braddon’s novel, the behavior of most characters does not align with the expectations for their gender. The exception is Lady Audley, the apparently ideal woman whose beauty and charm mask a vicious and criminal nature. Her plea of insanity, while it may offer an excuse for her unfeminine behavior, does not pardon her crimes. However, hero Robert Audley’s behavior is absolutely effeminate, but he has a strong moral sense and total devotion to his loved ones. Their deviation from or adherence to gender-appropriate behaviors does not change their essential natures. In Lady Audley’s Secret, Braddon uses gender roles and the theme of insanity to critique the Victorian conception of identity

It\u27s oil and water : Race, Gender, Power, and Trauma in Vu Tran\u27s Dragonfish

ABSTRACT: This article analyzes in-depth the interplay between race, gender, power, and trauma in Vu Tran’s debut novel, Dragonfish. We argue that Dragonfish focuses on the relationships, desires, and conflicts among its three protagonists—Robert, Suzy, and Sonny—to highlight how their postwar interactions complicate race, gender, trauma, and remembrance. The three protagonists engage in an intense socio-political struggle for dominance and control, which is riddled with irony, heart-wrenching pain, and misleading appearances. They experience hardship and loss, but they rely on each other for recovery from past and present trauma, and to advance their own varying personal priorities and agendas: while both of the male characters, Robert and Sonny, attempt individually to exercise control over Suzy, she in fact embodies the femme fatale archetype who subverts their dominance in order to act independently of their wills

Demand Distribution Dynamics in Creative Industries: the Market for Books in Italy

We studied the distribution dynamics of the demand for books in Italy. We found that for each of the three broad sub-markets into which the book publishing industry can be classified - Italian novels, foreign novels and non-fiction - sales over a three-year sample can be adequately fitted by a power law distribution. Our results can be plausibly interpreted in terms of a model of interactions among buyers exchanging information on the books they buy.Book publishing industry; Information transmission; Power law distribution

Menorah Review (No. 41, Fall, 1997)

The Jewish Image in American Fiction -- An Endless Journey? -- A Summer\u27s Game -- The Exilic Home of Jewish Literature -- Book Listing -- Book Briefing

Menorah Review (No. 43, Spring/Summer, 1998)

Books on Contemporary Israel: Process, Perception and Progress -- A Story Too Often Told: Supersessionism and Triumphalism -- By the Law of the Land -- A Complex Partnership? -- On Heroes and Jews -- Book Briefing