Texts Of Desire: Essays Of Fiction, Femininity And Schooling

by Linda Christian-Smith (Editor)

Overview

Popular fiction continues to be the object of both academic and political Interest as educators seek to understand the role literacy plays in constructing gender, class, race, ethnic, sexual, age and national subjectivities of young women. Popular fiction represents both Ideological closure and utopian possibilities. Nowhere are these double-edged qualities more evident than In popular teen romance fiction. Texts of Desire examines stories in which desire, fantasy, politics and economics are intertwined with literacy, femininities and schooling. It focuses on the role of teen romance and other popular fiction in the construction and re­construction of femininities Internationally. These texts, many of which focus on girls' first love experiences, have stunned the publishing world with their record sales and international readership in little over ten years. Developed in the United States amid the conservative political Reaganism, teen romance fiction condenses and articulates the long-standing fears and resentments of conservative groups regarding feminism, and women's growing independence and political power. Texts of Desire is a stimulating collection of essays which draw on multidisciplinary approaches from cultural studies and feminist theories, psychoanalysis, semiotics, reader research, and critical theory. Internationally recognised researchers explore the complexity of the worldwide teen romance novel phenomenon, and the political character of women's schooling and literacies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781317791560
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	01/14/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	198
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Undo K. Christian-Smith is an Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction in the College of Education and Human Services at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh. Her interests include issues of gender, class, race, sexuality and age in schooling, cultural politics, feminist materialist poststructuralist theories and critical literacy. She has taught French, English and reading in elementary and secondary schools. She currently teaches courses regarding the individual, school and society relation and the curriculum and instruction in the middle school.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Constituting and Reconstituting Desire:Fiction, Fantasy and Femininity, Linda K. Christian-Smith; Chapter 2 Retailing Gender: Adolescent Book Clubs in Australian Schools, Dianne Cooper; Chapter 3 Girls and Reading: The Desire for Agency and the Horror of Helplessness in Fictional Encounters, Meredith Rogers Cherland, Carole Edelsky; Chapter 4 Sweet Dreams: Gender and Desire in Teen Romance Novels, Linda K. Christian-Smith; Chapter 5 Dolly Fictions: Teen Romance Down Under, Pam Gilbert; Chapter 6 Reading the Romance Younger: The Mirrors and Fears of a Preparatory Literature, John Willinsky, R. Mark Hunniford; Chapter 7 The Place for Romance in Young People’s Writing, Gemma Moss; Chapter 8 Transforming the Texts: Towards a Feminist Classroom Practice, Sandra Taylor; Chapter 9 Beyond Dualism and Towards Multiple Subjectivities, Bronwyn Davies;