Readings

Illouz, Eva. "Pain and Circuses." Chapter 4 in Oprah Winfrey and the Glamour of Misery. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780231118125.

Barnard, Rita. "Oprah's Paton, or South Africa and the Globalization of Suffering." Safundi 7, no. 3 (July 2006): 1-21.

Oprah's Archive of her Book Club choices

Suggested

McHenry, Elizabeth. Forgotten Readers: Recovering the Lost History of African American Literary Societies. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002, pp. 298-315, 384-386. ISBN: 9780822329954.

Oprah vs. Franzen

Rejecting the Oprah Sticker: This is a brief piece about the tiff between Oprah and Jonathan Franzen, who is arguably one of those white male modernist writers that John Young talks about in his article. Their dispute developed after Franzen was less than enthusiastic about The Corrections being chosen for Oprah's Book Club. It still won a National Book Award. [Miller, Laura. "Book Lovers' Quarrel." Salon.com, October 26, 2001.]

Franzen vs. Women's Fiction: This piece, also brief, addresses the notion of an opposition between what Franzen writes and what women write (and how this relates to the tiff with Oprah). [Elliott, Jane. "O is for the Other Things She Gave Me: Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections and Contemporary Women's Fiction." Bitch Magazine 16 (Spring 2002): 70-74.]

de Certeau, Michel. "Reading as Poaching." In The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by Steven Rendall. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002 [1984], pp. 165-176. ISBN: 9780520236998.

Chartier, Roger. "Labourers and Voyagers: From the Text to the Reader." In The Book History Reader. Edited by David Finkelstein and Alistair McCleery. New York, NY: Routledge, 2001, pp. 47-58. ISBN: 9780415226585.

Suggested

Darnton, Robert. "First Steps Towards a History of Reading." In The Kiss of Lamourette: Reflections in Cultural History. New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1990, pp. 154-187, 364-369. ISBN: 9780393027532.

Henkin, David M. "Print in Public." In City Reading: Written Words and Public Spaces in Antebellum. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1998, pp. 101-135, 197-203. ISBN: 9780231107457.

Denning, Michael. "Fiction Factories: The Production of Dime Novels." In Mechanic Accents: Dime Novels and Working-Class Culture in America. Revised edition. London, UK: Verso, 1998, pp. 17-26, 214-216. ISBN: 9781859842508.

———. "The Uses of Literacy: Class, Culture and Dime Novel Controversies." In Mechanic Accents: Dime Novels and Working-Class Culture in America. Revised edition. London, UK: Verso, 1998, pp. 47-61, 221-222. ISBN: 9781859842508.

Radway, Janice. "A Feeling for Books: The Book-of-the-Month Club, Literary Taste and Middle-Class Drive." In The Book History Reader. Edited by David Finkelstein and Alistair McCleery. New York, NY: Routledge, 2001, pp. 359-371. ISBN: 9780415226585.

Tompkins, Jane. "Masterpiece Theatre: The Politics of Hawthorne's Literary Reputation." In The Book History Reader. Edited by David Finkelstein and Alistair McCleery. New York, NY: Routledge, 2001, pp. 250-258. ISBN: 9780415226585.

Cornelius, Janet Duitsman. "Slaves, Religion and Reading." In When I Can Read My Title Clear: Literacy, Slavery, and Religion in the Antebellum South. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1992, pp. 11-36, 154-159. ISBN: 9780872498716.

Douglass, Frederick. Chapter VI in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Edited by William L. Andrews and William S. McFeely. New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1997, pp. 28-35. ISBN: 9780393969665. (The e-text is available via of Project Gutenberg.)

Suggested

Henson, Josiah. In The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada (1849). Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2007. ISBN: 9780548593233.

Radway, Janice. "The Readers and their Romances." In Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature. 2nd ed. Durham, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1991, pp. 46-85. ISBN: 9780807843499.

Parameswaran, Radhika. "Western Romance Fiction as English-Language Media in Postcolonial India." Journal of Communication 49, no. 3 (Summer 1999): 84-105.

In addition to reading these two articles, you must also go to a bookstore and buy a mass market romance novel (a REAL mass market romance novel, in a major romance series). And read it. In a public place.

Jenkins, Henry. "Scribbling in the Margins: Fan Readers / Fan Writers." Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. New York, NY: Routledge, 1992, pp. 152-184. ISBN: 9780415905725.

Penley, Constance. "Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Study of Popular Culture." Cultural Studies. Edited by Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, and Paula A. Treichler. New York, NY: Routledge, 1991, pp. 479-494. ISBN: 9780415903455.

In addition to reading these two articles, you must also browse the internet for fan fiction sites (and/or anti fan fiction sites) to familiarize yourself with what the internet has meant for the field of fan behavior that Jenkins and Penley scrutinize so closely and so intelligently in their work.

Miller, Laura. "The Best-Seller List as Marketing Tool and Historical Fiction." Book History 3 (2000): 286-304.

Twitchell, James B. "Paperbacked Culture." Carnival Culture: The Trashing of Taste in America. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1992, pp. 67-81, 98-130. ISBN: 9780231078306.

Suggested

Squaires, Claire. Marketing Literature: The Making of Contemporary Writing in Britain. London, UK: Palgrave, 2007, chapter 1. ISBN: 9781403997739.
This reading covers a lot of ground, charting changes that happened throughout the 1990s in the book trades. Her focus is London, but what she says certain applies just as well to a US context. It will help you think about how certain books become bestsellers (especially certain literary books).

Brouillette, Sarah. "The Paperback." In The Oxford Companion to the Book. Forthcoming.

Class Guest: Laura J. Miller

Miller, Laura J. "Serving the Entertained Consumer: The Multifunction Bookstore." In Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2006, pp. 104-139, 258-263. ISBN: 9780226525907.

Gardiner, Juliet. "Reformulating the Reader: Internet Bookselling and its Impact on the Construction of Reading Practices." Changing English 9, no. 2 (October 2002): 161-168.

Suggested

Miller, Laura J. Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2006, pp. 104-139, 258-263. ISBN: 9780226525907.

Nel, Philip. "Is There a Text in this Advertising Campaign?: Literature, Marketing, and Harry Potter." The Lion and the Unicorn 29, no. 2 (2005): 236-267.

Waetjen, Jarrod, and Timothy Gibson. "Harry Potter and the Commodity Fetish: Activating Corporate Readings in the Journey from Text to Commercial Intertext." Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 4, no. 1 (March 2007): 3-26.

Suggested

Bérubé, Michael. "Harry Potter and the Power of Narrative." The Common Review 6, no. 1 (Summer 2007): 15-20.