Eva Jannotta

Jessica Berman, Associate Professor, Department of English

UC 310  |  10:15-10:30 AM

Contemporary popular fiction novels written by and for women, often called “chick-lit” novels, are a genre frequently derided by the media and literary critics. Yet their commercial success and popularity attest to their importance and relevance to contemporary women readers. My research examines chick-lit novels from a Gender and Women's Studies and literary criticism perspective. I first analyze nine novels for the ways in which they imagine and represent contemporary white professional women, paying particular attention to portrayals of female relationships, feminism, careers, and the perpetuation of whiteness as an invisible racial category. I then analyze three chick-lit novels in-depth, exploring them as contemporary revisions of fairy tales. Using folktale and postfeminist theory I explore how chick-lit novels masquerade as verisimilitude and disguise their elements of fantasy, thereby attempting to persuade the reader to believe in the fairy tale and feel reassured by it. My research illuminates the hopes and anxieties of contemporary white professional women as portrayed through the novels they read and write. Understanding the dynamics reflected in chick-lit novels and the fairy tale tropes these novels deploy allows readers and critics to understand the function, appeal and insight of chick-lit novels despite their dubious reputation.

*This work was funded through an Undergraduate Research Award from the UMBC Office of Undergraduate Education.