Synopses & Reviews
The Female Complaint is part of Lauren Berlantandrsquo;s groundbreaking andldquo;national sentimentalityandrdquo; project charting the emergence of the U.S. political sphere as an affective space of attachment and identification. In this book, Berlant chronicles the origins and conventions of the first mass-cultural andldquo;intimate publicandrdquo; in the United States, a andldquo;womenandrsquo;s cultureandrdquo; distinguished by a view that women inevitably have something in common and are in need of a conversation that feels intimate and revelatory. As Berlant explains, andldquo;womenandrsquo;sandrdquo; books, films, and television shows enact a fantasy that a womanandrsquo;s life is not just her own, but an experience understood by other women, no matter how dissimilar they are. The commodified genres of intimacy, such as andldquo;chick lit,andrdquo; circulate among strangers, enabling insider self-help talk to flourish in an intimate public. Sentimentality and complaint are central to this commercial convention of critique; their relation to the political realm is ambivalent, as politics seems both to threaten sentimental values and to provide certain opportunities for their extension.
Pairing literary criticism and historical analysis, Berlant explores the territory of this intimate public sphere through close readings of U.S. womenandrsquo;s literary works and their stage and film adaptations. Her interpretation of Uncle Tomandrsquo;s Cabin and its literary descendants reaches from Harriet Beecher Stowe to Toni Morrisonandrsquo;s Beloved, touching on Shirley Temple, James Baldwin, and The Bridges of Madison County along the way. Berlant illuminates different permutations of the womenandrsquo;s intimate public through her readings of Edna Ferberandrsquo;s Show Boat; Fannie Hurstandrsquo;s Imitation of Life; Olive Higgins Proutyandrsquo;s feminist melodrama Now, Voyager; Dorothy Parkerandrsquo;s poetry, prose, and Academy Awardandndash;winning screenplay for A Star Is Born; the Fay Weldon novel and Roseanne Barr film The Life and Loves of a She-Devil; and the queer, avant-garde film Showboat 1988andndash;The Remake. The Female Complaint is a major contribution from a leading Americanist.
Review
andldquo;Lauren Berlantandrsquo;s voice is as unmistakable as Ella Fitzgerald singing scat. By turns seductive and bracing, gentle and wise, reassuring and disorienting, The Female Complaint asks readers to take mass-mediated womenandrsquo;s culture seriously. By the end of this absorbing book, you will understand the importance of living better clichandeacute;s, why love requires amnesia, and how banality can be therapeutic. You will also have an irresistible craving to watch Now, Voyager one more time, in whatever setting enables you to thrive, and to give this fascinating book to someone who deserves to love better, or to forgive herself for just getting by.andrdquo;andmdash;Mary Poovey, New York University
Review
andldquo;Of all the feminist cultural theorists whom I admire, Lauren Berlant is the one I consider to be the most theoretically innovative and politically inspiring. Yet this book exceeded even my highest hopes and expectations. Refusing to dodge the really searching political questions for contemporary American culture, Berlant maps the tricky terrain of the intimate public sphere. She has written a phenomenal study of breathtaking scope. I have no doubt that scholars and students will continue to debate the issues it raises for many years to come.andrdquo;andmdash;Jackie Stacey, University of Manchester
Review
andldquo;Guiding us through a andlsquo;womenandrsquo;s cultureandrsquo; animated by scenes of longing for a fantasmatic commonality, an ever-elusive normativity, Lauren Berlant illuminates, in readings unfailingly subtle and wise, the psychic negotiations and emotional bargaining that women in U.S. culture conduct to be part of an andlsquo;intimate public.andrsquo; More dazzlingly still, she addresses what the business of sentimentality works to obscure: the possibility of political agency in the face of a cultural machinery that makes us feel helpless to do anything more than affirm our ability to feel. To read The Female Complaint is to realize how long and how much itandrsquo;s been needed.andrdquo;andmdash;Lee Edelman, author of No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive
Review
andldquo;
The Female Complaint advances and refines the relationship between intimacy and publicity in ways that suggestively rethink the category of individuality in late capitalism. . . .
The Female Complaint is an uncannily hopeful book, finding value and possibility in a wholly nonredemptive account of convention.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Berlant sounds like your smartest and bitchiest friendandmdash;and the insights just keep coming.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;The affective pleasure of reading The Female Complaint emerges from its unwillingness to sacrifice either incisive political critique that challenges the limits of womenandrsquo;s culture or textured formal accounts of the powerful emotional experience its texts provide for its consumers. . . . Theoretically ambitious and cogently argued, funny and invigorating, Berlantandrsquo;s text promises to profoundly reshape how we think about sentimentality, gender, and affect in American culture.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Some of the most important essays on U.S. culture produced during the past decade appear in The Female Complaint.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;The Female Complaint is a tour de force, a bracing read for feminist and postmodernist students of popular culture, as well as for genre theorists.andrdquo;
Review
“Hard-Core Romance is a wonderfully creative piece of cultural analysis. Writing from a feminist-sociological perspective, Eva Illouz tells us how Fifty Shades of Grey became an international bestseller by providing fantasy resolutions to real-life female dilemmas, and self-help for the douleurs of contemporary heterosexuality. A most timely intervention.”
Review
“A provocative text in its own right, Hard-Core Romance inventively employs the much-maligned Fifty Shades of a Grey to stage a philosophical and sociological conversation about relationship between fantasy, romance, sexuality, and popular literature. In a modern era where competing desires for autonomy and attachment in sexual relationships are lived realities but seldom theorized, Illouz bravely takes on the novels controversial sexual practices, finding in them a meditation on the anxieties and compromises that characterize heterosexual intimacy. This generous and original reading offers the tantalizing prospect that it will unveil the uncertainties and indeterminacies that inhere in the heterosexual compact—a promise that Hard-Core Romance masterfully delivers.”
Review
“[C]ompellingly audacious.”
Review
“[T]he first serious, book-length academic analysis of the Fifty Shades of Grey.”
Review
“Illouz rightly tags the trilogy a species of self-help."
Review
“A reasoned, thoughtful examination of gender relations, womens desires, and the role of passion in contemporary society. . . . Vital and interesting.”
Synopsis
Considers the development of sentimental "women's culture" in the U.S.--from Uncle Tom's Cabin to 1950s melodrama to contemporary chick lit--and the forms of politics and national belonging that emerge out of it.
Synopsis
A literary critical and historical chronicle of women s culture in the United States from 1830 to the present, by a leading Americanist.
Synopsis
The Fifty Shades trilogy of erotic romance novels has been a publishing sensation, with over seventy million copies sold worldwide since the first volume appeared in 2011. Clearly, Fifty Shades is a cultural phenomenon worth serious scrutiny, and sociologist Eva Illouz provides it in this short, engaging book. Illouz first places the trilogy in the context of best-seller publishing, then delves into the nature of its appeal. She argues that the Fifty Shades trilogy is neither “mommy porn” nor anti-feminist hackwork. Rather, she shows that it affords intense reading pleasure to many women readers because it resonates with the sociological structure of mens and womens relationships today. Fifty Shades, she argues, is a gothic romance adapted to modern times in which sexuality is a source both of division between men and women and a site to orchestrate their reconciliation. But Illouz also wants to show that BDSM is as much a cultural as a sexual fantasy, for it functions here as a self-help category, a guide to a happier romantic life. In other words, Fifty Shades is genre fiction that weaves together a commentary on the deprived condition of love and sexuality, a romantic fantasy, and self-help instructions on how to improve the readers life.
Synopsis
From its beginnings in Twilight fan-fiction to its record-breaking sales as an e-book and paperback, the story of the erotic romance novel Fifty Shades of Grey and its two sequels is both unusual and fascinating. Having sold over seventy million copies worldwide since 2011, E. L. Jamess lurid series about a sexual ingénue and the powerful young entrepreneur who introduces her to BDSM sex has ingrained itself in our collective consciousness. But why have these particular novelspoorly written and formulaic as they arebecome so popular, especially among women over thirty? In this concise, engaging book, Eva Illouz subjects the Fifty Shades cultural phenomenon to the serious scrutiny it has been begging for. After placing the trilogy in the context of best-seller publishing, she delves into its remarkable appeal, seeking to understand the intense reading pleasure it provides and how that resonates with the structure of relationships between men and women today. Fifty Shades, Illouz argues, is a gothic romance adapted to modern times in which sexuality is both a source of division between men and women and a site to orchestrate their reconciliation. As for the novels notorious depictions of bondage, discipline, and sadomasochism, Illouz shows that these are as much a cultural fantasy as a sexual one, serving as a guide to a happier romantic life. The Fifty Shades trilogy merges romantic fantasy with self-help guidetwo of the most popular genres for female readers. Offering a provocative explanation for the success and popularity of the Fifty Shades of Grey novels, Hard-Core Romance is an insightful look at modern relationships and contemporary womens literature.
About the Author
“Guiding us through a ‘women’s culture’ animated by scenes of longing for a fantasmatic commonality, an ever-elusive normativity, Lauren Berlant illuminates, in readings unfailingly subtle and wise, the psychic negotiations and emotional bargaining that women in U.S. culture conduct to be part of an ‘intimate public.’ More dazzlingly still, she addresses what the business of sentimentality works to obscure: the possibility of political agency in the face of a cultural machinery that makes us feel helpless to do anything more than affirm our ability to feel. To read The Female Complaint is to realize how long and how much it’s been needed.”—Lee Edelman, author of No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive“Lauren Berlant’s voice is as unmistakable as Ella Fitzgerald singing scat. By turns seductive and bracing, gentle and wise, reassuring and disorienting, The Female Complaint asks readers to take mass-mediated women’s culture seriously. By the end of this absorbing book, you will understand the importance of living better clichés, why love requires amnesia, and how banality can be therapeutic. You will also have an irresistible craving to watch Now, Voyager one more time, in whatever setting enables you to thrive, and to give this fascinating book to someone who deserves to love better, or to forgive herself for just getting by.”—Mary Poovey, New York University“Of all the feminist cultural theorists whom I admire, Lauren Berlant is the one I consider to be the most theoretically innovative and politically inspiring. Yet this book exceeded even my highest hopes and expectations. Refusing to dodge the really searching political questions for contemporary American culture, Berlant maps the tricky terrain of the intimate public sphere. She has written a phenomenal study of breathtaking scope. I have no doubt that scholars and students will continue to debate the issues it raises for many years to come.”—Jackie Stacey, University of Manchester“Of all the feminist cultural theorists whom I admire, Lauren Berlant is the one I consider to be the most theoretically innovative and politically inspiring. Yet this book exceeded even my highest hopes and expectations. Refusing to dodge the really searching political questions for contemporary American culture, Berlant maps the tricky terrain of the intimate public sphere. She has written a phenomenal study of breathtaking scope. I have no doubt that scholars and students will continue to debate the issues it raises for many years to come.”—Jackie Stacey, University of Manchester
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
1 Best-Sellers and Our Social Unconscious
2 How to Find Emotional Certainty in a World of Sexual Uncertainty
Epilogue: Sado-Masochism as a Romantic Utopia
Coda: BDSM and Immanence
Works Cited
Index