Author: Susan Ostrov Weisser Publisher: NYU Press ISBN: 0814793541 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 492
Book Description
Weisser (English, Adelphi U.) writes that her anthology is "for anyone who is interested in understanding the conflicted but powerful female urge to experience the pleasure and endure the pain of romantic love." In particular, she explores the collision of pervasive media images of romance with feminist values of independence and self-assertion. Several dozen historic and contemporary works of criticism, personal essays, and letters, by feminist and anti-feminist thinkers, consider changing images of romantic love and whether romance, fundamentally, weakens or empowers women. Contributors include Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Charlotte Bronte, Karen Horney, Simone de Beauvoir, Rita Mae Brown, bell hooks, Vivian Gornick, and Carolyn Heilbrun. c. Book News Inc.
Author: Laurie Langbauer Publisher: Cornell University Press ISBN: 1501723065 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 286
Book Description
According to Laurie Langbauer, the notion of romance is vague precisely because it represents the chaotic negative space outside the novel that determines its form. Addressing questions of form, Langbauer reads novels that explore the interplay between the novel and romance: works by Charlotte Lennox, Mary Wollstonecraft, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and George Meredith. She considers key issues in feminist debate, in particular the relations of feminist to the poststructuralist theories of Lacan, Derrida, and Foucault. In highlighting questions of gender in this way, Women and Romance contributes to a major debate between skeptical and materialist points of view among poststructuralist critics.
Author: Janice A. Radway Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press ISBN: 0807898856 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 289
Book Description
Originally published in 1984, Reading the Romance challenges popular (and often demeaning) myths about why romantic fiction, one of publishing's most lucrative categories, captivates millions of women readers. Among those who have disparaged romance reading are feminists, literary critics, and theorists of mass culture. They claim that romances enforce the woman reader's dependence on men and acceptance of the repressive ideology purveyed by popular culture. Radway questions such claims, arguing that critical attention "must shift from the text itself, taken in isolation, to the complex social event of reading." She examines that event, from the complicated business of publishing and distribution to the individual reader's engagement with the text. Radway's provocative approach combines reader-response criticism with anthropology and feminist psychology. Asking readers themselves to explore their reading motives, habits, and rewards, she conducted interviews in a midwestern town with forty-two romance readers whom she met through Dorothy Evans, a chain bookstore employee who has earned a reputation as an expert on romantic fiction. Evans defends her customers' choice of entertainment; reading romances, she tells Radway, is no more harmful than watching sports on television. "We read books so we won't cry" is the poignant explanation one woman offers for her reading habit. Indeed, Radway found that while the women she studied devote themselves to nurturing their families, these wives and mothers receive insufficient devotion or nurturance in return. In romances the women find not only escape from the demanding and often tiresome routines of their lives but also a hero who supplies the tenderness and admiring attention that they have learned not to expect. The heroines admired by Radway's group defy the expected stereotypes; they are strong, independent, and intelligent. That such characters often find themselves to be victims of male aggression and almost always resign themselves to accepting conventional roles in life has less to do, Radway argues, with the women readers' fantasies and choices than with their need to deal with a fear of masculine dominance. These romance readers resent not only the limited choices in their own lives but the patronizing atitude that men especially express toward their reading tastes. In fact, women read romances both to protest and to escape temporarily the narrowly defined role prescribed for them by a patriarchal culture. Paradoxically, the books that they read make conventional roles for women seem desirable. It is this complex relationship between culture, text, and woman reader that Radway urges feminists to address. Romance readers, she argues, should be encouraged to deliver their protests in the arena of actual social relations rather than to act them out in the solitude of the imagination. In a new introduction, Janice Radway places the book within the context of current scholarship and offers both an explanation and critique of the study's limitations.
Author: Paulette Stout Publisher: Media Goddess Inc. ISBN: 173663710X Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 388
Book Description
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE ONLY ONE HOLDING YOU BACK, IS YOU? Rebecca was raised to be independent—handle her business, graduate college, and dive into a rising advertising career. But there’s a nagging problem she’s hasn’t been able to shake. The same one that sends her boyfriend storming out the bedroom door. Her doctor says she’s fine, but what would he know? He wasn’t the only 28-year-old woman in Manhattan who couldn’t finish in the bedroom. For the life of her, she can’t figure out what she’s doing wrong. Her new doctor is unorthodox, but she’s tried everything else. Well, everything except Kyle. The gorgeous photographer who moves in across the hall is everything she isn’t. He’s confident, charming, and takes the world by storm from astride his black motorcycle. When they’re together, her troubles melt away. Well, all but one. After hiding her secret becomes impossible, Rebecca is forced to fight for the life she wants—knowing it could be her last chance. Daringly honest and tenderly relatable, Love, Only Better explores a topic too long kept in the shadows: women’s pleasure. Paulette Stout crafts an authentic and inspiring story that will leave readers feeling empowered. This book contains intimate scenes. PRAISE FOR LOVE, ONLY BETTER “Stout excels at describing and dramatizing Rebecca’s issues, seizing a welcome opportunity to address common (but often avoided) issues surrounding female sexuality and intimacy.” —BookLife "This book is original and needed women's fiction" --BookTrib “Love, only better is a sex-positive, empowering novel about common female issues that are rarely discussed… kudos to Paulette for wrapping this issue in a charming novel.” —Hasty Book List “Brave in a way women desperately need.” —Reader Review “I loved the feminism and the overdue mentions of women's basic needs. I definitely recommend this book.” (NetGalley) “If you’re looking for a book with its heart open just waiting to draw you in, look no further. I really recommend it.” (NetGalley) “Paulette Stout deserves all the stars for bringing to the page a story that I haven’t seen explore in fiction this way before.” (NetGalley) “The chemistry between Kyle and Rebecca had me on the edge of my seat. I definitely recommend this book.” (NetGalley) “At a time when women need their voices heard, you sing a beautiful song with this book.” (Reader Review) “Rebecca’s journey is a story I’ve never encountered before and I read A LOT of books.” (Reader Review) “I thoroughly enjoyed it and read it in two days.” (Reader Review) “You took a difficult topic and made it a beach read.” (Reader Review) “I’ve fallen in love with Kyle.” (Reader Review) “Rebecca is such a great, multidimensional character.” (Reader Review) “I couldn’t put it down.” (Reader Review) “I absolutely adore these characters.” (Reader Review)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press ISBN: 9780812214116 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 212
Book Description
Essays by Sandra Brown, Jayne Ann Krentz, Mary Jo Putney, and other romance writers refute the myths and biases related to the romance genre and its readers.
Author: Gregory Ashe Publisher: Hodgkin and Blount ISBN: Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 171
Book Description
Hazard and Somerset: Off Duty Volume 2 is a collection of short stories. It includes the following: “John-Henry Somerset: Sold!” Somers enters a charity bachelor’s auction without telling his boyfriend. This story takes place before The Rational Faculty. “Pretty and Pink and Perfect” Hazard plans a toddler’s birthday party. This story takes place before The Rational Faculty. “Pride Slays Thanksgiving” Hazard and Somers prepare for their first Thanksgiving as a couple. This story takes place before Police Brutality. “Santa: A Cultural Hegemony” Hazard is volun-told to dress up as Santa. This story takes place before Transactional Dynamics. “Valentine’s in Six Beats” Hazard executes his do-over for Valentine’s. This story takes place before Wayward. “Emery’s Birthday Scavenger Hunt” Somers plans the perfect birthday for Hazard . . . or so he thinks. This story takes place before The Keeper of Bees. “Hazard and Somerset: Off Duty” A series of six vignettes featuring Hazard and Somers on a Caribbean vacation. This story takes place after The Keeper of Bees. Please note that the first six stories have distributed previously to mailing list subscribers and at GRL 2019. “Hazard and Somerset: Off Duty” is exclusively available in this collection.
Author: Robin Norwood Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1416550216 Category : Self-Help Languages : en Pages : 355
Book Description
Discusses "loving too much" as a pattern of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors which certain women develop as a reponse to various problems in their family backgrounds.
Author: Dorothy C. Holland Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 022621849X Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 289
Book Description
Is romance more important to women in college than grades are? Why do so many women enter college with strong academic backgrounds and firm career goals but leave with dramatically scaled-down ambitions? Dorothy C. Holland and Margaret A. Eisenhart expose a pervasive "culture of romance" on campus: a high-pressure peer system that propels women into a world where their attractiveness to men counts most.
Author: Ramsey Hootman Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1476711305 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 400
Book Description
Samuel Cooke knows most women wouldn’t give him a second glance even if he were the last man on earth. He’s the cripple with crutches, the nerdy computer genius every female past puberty feels compelled to mother. So when he leaves his lucrative career to teach programming to high schoolers, romance definitely isn’t on his radar. Perhaps that’s why Greta Cassamajor catches him off guard. The sarcastic gym coach with zero sense of humor is no beauty—not even on the inside. But an inexplicably kind act toward Samuel makes him realize she is interesting. Samuel is certain she won’t accept his invitation to dinner—so when she does, he’s out of his depth. All he knows is that he’ll do whatever it takes to keep her as long as he can. Pretending he’s got his class under control? Easy. Being vulnerable enough to admit why he ditched his programming career for teaching? Um, no. That would require honesty. And if there’s one thing Samuel can’t exist without, it’s the lies he tells himself. In this poignant, witty debut, Ramsey Hootman upends traditional romance tropes to weave a charming tale of perseverance, trust, and slightly conditional love.
Author: Susan Ostrov Weisser
Author: Laurie Langbauer
Author: Lucy Sanna
Author: Janice A. Radway
Author: Paulette Stout
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz
Author: Gregory Ashe
Author: Robin Norwood
Author: Dorothy C. Holland
Author: Ramsey Hootman