The Feminist, The Housewife, and the Soap Opera

by Charlotte Brunsdon

Overview

The Feminist, the Housewife, and the Soňap Opera traces the history of the feminist engagement with soap opera using a wide range of sources from programme publicity to interviews with key scholars. The book reveals that feminist scholarship on soap opera was a significant site of which the identity 'feminist intellectual' was produced in dialogue with her imagined other, the soap opera watching housewife. The book integrates personal autobiographical accounts within a broader history which traces both the move from 'women's liberation' to 'Feminism', and the acceptance of soap opera as a serious object of study.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198159803
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	04/06/2000
Series:	Oxford Television Studies
Pages:	268
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.90(d)

Table of Contents

IntroductionPart 1. Mapping the FieldsWomen's genres and female agencyPart 2. Early Work on Soňap Opera: "Worrying Responsibility"The Housewife in the 1940s Mass Communication Research: Arnheim, Kaufman, and HerzogFeminists Taking Soňap Opera Seriously: The Work of Carol Lopate, Michele Mattelart, and Tania ModleskiFantasies of the Housewife: The Case of CrossroadsPart 3. Talking Soňap OperaAutobiography and Ethnography'I don't think we thought about it as studying soap opera': Christine Geraghty'What about the rest of the audience?' Dorothy Hobson'Slightly guilty pleasures': Terry Lovell'The pleasure of a programme like this is not something simple': Ien Ang'A sense of trying to valorise soap opera as women's TV': Ellen SeiterCommonalties: Writing Across the InterviewsThe Feminist, the Housewife, and the Soňap OperaAppendixBibliography