The Oprah affect : critical essays on Oprah's book club / edited by Cecilia Konchar Farr and Jaime Harker
- Bib ID:
- 4545380
- Format:
- Book
- Description:
-
- Albany, NY : State University of New York Press, c2008
- ix, 347 p. ; 24 cm.
- ISBN:
-
- 9780791476154
- 9780791476161
- Summary:
-
"The Oprah Affect explores the cultural impact of Oprah's Book Club, particularly in light of debates about the definition and purpose of literature in American culture. For the critics collected here, Oprah's Book Club stands, in the context of American literary history, not as an egregious undermining of who we are and what we represent, as some have maintained, but as the latest manifestation of a tradition that encourages symbiotic relationships between readers and texts. Powered by women writers and readers, novels in this tradition attract crowds, sell well, and make unabashed appeals to emotion. The essays consider the interlocking issues of affect, affinity, accessibility, and activism in the context of this tradition. Juxtaposing book history; reading practices; literary analysis; feminist criticism; and communication, religious, political, and cultural studies; the contributors map a range of possibilities for further research on Oprah's Book Club.
A complete chronological list of Book Club picks is included."--BOOK JACKET.
- Full contents:
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- Introduction / Jaime Harker and Cecilia Konchar Farr
- Oprah in the public library / Juliette Wells and Virginia Wells
- Talking readers / Cecilia Konchar Farr
- Reading religiously : the ritual practices of Oprah's book club / Katherine Lofton
- The romance of reading like Oprah / Yung-Hsing Wu
- Oprah's book selections : teleliterature for the Oprah Winfrey Show / Mark Hall
- Resisting Paradise : Toni Morrison, Oprah Winfrey, and the middlebrow audience / Michael Perry
- Oprah's book club and the politics of cross-racial empathy / Kimberly Chabot Davis
- Beware the furrow of the middlebrow : searching for Paradise on the Oprah Winfrey show / Timothy Aubry
- "Did Isabel Allende write this book for me?" : Oprah's book club reads Daughter of fortune / Ana Patricia Rodríquez
- The trouble with happy endings : conflicting narratives in Oprah's book club / Kelley Penfield Lewis
- Your book changed my life : everyday literary criticism and Oprah's book club / Kate Douglas
- Correcting Oprah : Jonathan Franzen and the uses of literature in the therapeutic age / Kevin Quirk
- The way we read now : Oprah Winfrey, intellectuals, and democracy / Simon Stow
- Everything old is new again : Oprah's book club returns with the classics / Kathleen Rooney
- Afterward : Oprah, James Frey, and the problem of the literary / Jaime Harker.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Subject:
- Other authors/contributors:
- Copyright:
-
In Copyright
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Copyright status was determined using the following information:
- Material type:
- Literary Dramatic Musical
- Published status:
- Published
- Publication date:
- 2008
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