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Sarah Gormley
Bridget and her 'sisters': comedy, conversation and community in chick lit
Research centre
Humanities Research Centre
Discipline/professional area
English studies
Outline of research project
As far as possible make the account of the work understandable to the 'educated layperson'
This project focuses upon the novels by, about and for women popularly known as chick lit, and their consumers. Since its emergence in the mid 1990s, chick lit has provoked oppositional responses, from the adulation of its fans, who claim chick lit reflects contemporary women's experiences, to the disdain of critics in the media and the academy, for whom these novels are trivial and anti-feminist. Moving beyond positive/negative judgements, this project suggests that chick lit raises issues of generational and ideological conflict. Characterised by humour, intimacy and a specific socio-cultural 'knowingness' assumed on the part of both narrator and reader, this project suggests that chick lit attempts to mobilize a notion of community amongst women, rooted in the intersection of feminist and postfeminist discourses. Rather than relying upon an absent reader, however, detailed interviews with chick lit readers will investigate the resonances of chick lit's fictional worlds and women.
Key references
- Ferriss, Suzanne and Young, Mallory (eds) (2006). Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction. New York and Oxon: Routledge
- Henry, Astrid (2004). Not My Mother's Sister: Generational Conflict and Third-Wave Feminism. Indiana: Indiana University Press
- Heywood, Leslie (ed) (2006). The Women's Movement Today: An Encyclopedia of Third-Wave Feminism. Connecticut and London: Greenwood Press
- Knowles, Joanne (ed) (2004). Chicklit. Diegesis: Journal of the Association for Research in Popular Fictions, 8
- Whelehan, Imelda (2005). The Feminist Bestseller. Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan
Director of studies
Professor Sara Mills
Supervisors
Dr Steven Earnshaw
