Anglistik

Anglistik

Heike Mißler

Proseminar "Bridget Jones and Her Sisters: British Postfeminist Fiction since 1996"
Di 14-16 Uhr
C 5 3, Raum E20

In 1996, Bridget Jones's Diary helped spark an international publishing phenomenon of rather dubious acclaim: chick lit. A derogatory marketing label for female-centered novels, chick lit has met with considerable criticism from scholars and the mainstream media alike. Nevertheless, the highly successful single-girl-in-the-city formula soon developed into a fully-fledged genre with numerous subgenres and has flooded bookshops ever since. Despite the fact that the publishing industries declared the demise of chick lit a few years ago, the formula remains a powerful cultural narrative which continues to influence newer formats of postfeminist literature and media culture.

In this course, we will study two classic chick-lit texts, Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary and Sophie Kinsella's Confessions of a Shopaholic, and a recent variation of the chick-lit genre, E.L. James's Fifty Shades of Grey. You will be required to prepare additional secondary readings provided to you via Moodle. Read Bridget Jones's Diary before the start of term.

Please buy the following editions:
Fielding, Helen. Bridget Jones's Diary. 1996. London: Penguin Books, 2001. Print.
Kinsella, Sophie. Confessions of a Shopaholic. 2000. London: Black Swan, 2009. Print.
James, E.L. Fifty Shades of Grey. 2011. London: Vintage, 2012. Print.