Media in Cultural Context: Popular Readerships

Readings

• SES #: 1 · TOPICS: Introductions: You, Me, Oprah · READINGS: (no readings)
  Reading assignment
• Max, D. T. “The Oprah Effect.” The New York Times , December 26, 1999.
  Listed reading
• Young, John. “Toni Morrison, Oprah Winfrey, and Postmodern Popular Audiences.” African American Review 35, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 181-204.
  Listed reading
• Illouz, Eva. “Pain and Circuses.” Chapter 4 in Oprah Winfrey and the Glamour of Misery . New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780231118125.
  Listed reading
• Barnard, Rita. “Oprah’s Paton, or South Africa and the Globalization of Suffering.” Safundi 7, no. 3 (July 2006): 1-21.
  Listed reading
• 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.
  Listed reading
• 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. ↗
  Listed reading
• Poulet, Georges. “Phenomenology of Reading.” New Literary History 1 (1969): 53-68.
  Listed reading
• Iser, Wolfgang. “Interaction Between Text and Reader.” In Prospecting: From Reader Response to Literary Anthropology . Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993 [1989], pp. 31-41. ISBN: 9780801845932.
  Listed reading
• Fish, Stanley. “Literature in the Reader: Affective Stylistics.” New Literary History 2, no. 1, A Symposium on Literary History (Autumn 1970): 123-162.
  Listed reading
• ———. “Interpreting the Variorum.” Critical Inquiry 3, no. 1 (Autumn 1976): 191-196.
  Listed reading
• 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.
  Listed reading
• 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.
  Listed reading
• 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.
  Listed reading
• Zboray, Robert. “Gender and Boundlessness in Reading Patterns.” In A Fictive People: Antebellum Economic Development and the American Reading Public . New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1992, pp. 163-179, 251-258. ISBN: 9780195075823.
  Listed reading
• Davis, Natalie Zemon. “Printing and the People.” In Society and Culture in Early Modern France: Eight Essays . Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1975, pp. 189-226, 326-336. ISBN: 9780804709729.
  Listed reading
• 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.
  Listed reading
• 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.
  Listed reading
• ———. “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.
  Listed reading
• Altick, Richard. “The Social Background.” In The English Common Reader: A Social History of the Mass Reading Public 1800-1900 . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1957, pp. 81-98.
  Listed reading
• Rose, Jonathan. “Rereading the English Common Reader.” In The Book History Reader . Edited by David Finkelstein and Alistair McCleery. New York, NY: Routledge, 2001, pp. 324-339. ISBN: 9780415226585.
  Listed reading
• 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.
  Listed reading
• 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.
  Listed reading
• 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.
  Listed reading
• 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.) ↗
  Listed reading
• Henson, Josiah. In The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada (1849) . Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2007. ISBN: 9780548593233.
  Listed reading
• 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.
  Listed reading
• Parameswaran, Radhika. “Western Romance Fiction as English-Language Media in Postcolonial India.” Journal of Communication 49, no. 3 (Summer 1999): 84-105.
  Listed reading
• 16 · Romance readers II · Radway, Janice. “Introduction: Writing Reading the Romance.” In Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature . 2nd ed. Durham, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1991, pp. 46-85. ISBN: 9780807843499.
  Listed reading
• Brown, Jeffrey. “Comic Book Fandom.” Black Superheroes, Milestone Comics, and Their Fans . Jackson, MI: University of Mississippi Press, 2001, pp. 58-92, 205. ISBN: 9781578062829. This is a wonderful piece. One of my favorite studies of fan behavior. The material about comics fans at their annual convention is priceless.
  Listed reading
• The righteous anger of Eric Reynolds by Heidi MacDonald in The Beat: The News Blog of Comics Culture (September 1, 2007) ↗
  Listed reading
• On being a grown-up in the comic-book industry by Christopher Butcher in Comics212 (September 3, 2007) ↗
  Listed reading
• Why Comic Shops Still Matter, Or At Least Why They Should by Tom Spurgeon in The Comics Report (September 10, 2007) ↗
  Listed reading
• The State of Comic Shops by Jennider De Guzman in SLG: Better Comics Through Superior Firepower by SLG Publishing News (September 12, 2007) ↗
  Listed reading
• 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.
  Listed reading
• 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.
  Listed reading
• Miller, Laura. “The Best-Seller List as Marketing Tool and Historical Fiction.” Book History 3 (2000): 286-304.
  Listed reading
• 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.
  Listed reading
• 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).
  Listed reading
• Brouillette, Sarah. “The Paperback.” In The Oxford Companion to the Book . Forthcoming.
  Listed reading
• Out of class: Go visit a mega-chain bookstore, and watch You’ve Got Mail . ↗
  Listed reading
• 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.
  Listed reading
• 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.
  Listed reading
• 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.
  Listed reading
• Fuller, Danielle, and DeNel Rehberg Sedo. “A Reading Spectacle for the Nation: The CBC and ‘Canada Reads’.” Journal of Canadian Studies 40, no. 1 (Winter 2006): 5-36.
  Listed reading
• 23 · FADS: Harry Potter mania
  Listed reading
• 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.
  Listed reading
• 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.
  Listed reading
• Bérubé, Michael. “Harry Potter and the Power of Narrative.” The Common Review 6, no. 1 (Summer 2007): 15-20.
  Listed reading