Chick Lit Academic Bibliography

A-C

Adams, L. 2004. 

"Chick Lit and Chick Flicks: Secret Power or Flat Formula?" The Horn Book Magazine. 80:669-680.[1]

Akass, Kim, and Janet McCabe, 2004. 

“Ms. Parker and the Vicious Circle: Female Narrative and Humour in Sex and the City,” Reading Sex and the City. Eds. Kim Akass and Janet McCabe. London and New York: I.B.Tauris, 2004. 177-198.

Alb, Anemona Filip. 2008.

"Protean Femininities: Shifting Stereotypes in 'Chick Lit'." Gender Studies 1, no. 7: 39-48.

Arosteguy, Katie O'Donnell. 2009. 

"The Clothes Do Make the Women: The Politics of Fashioning Femininity in Contemporary American Chick Lit." Dissertation Abstracts International, Section A: The Humanities and Social Sciences 70, no. 11: 4284. [2]

Arosteguy, Katie. 2010. 

"The Politics of Race, Class, and Sexuality in Contemporary American Mommy Lit." Women's Studies 39, no. 5: 409-429.

Arthurs, Jane. 

“Sex and the City and Consumer Culture: Remediating Postfeminist Drama.” Feminist Media Studies 3.1 (2003): 83-98.

Balducci, Federica. 2011. 

A Different Shade of Pink: Literary Thresholds and Cultural Intersections in Italian Chick Lit. A thesis submitted to the Victoria University of Wellington in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Italian. [3]

Balducci, Federica. 2011. 

“When chick lit meets romanzo rosa: Intertextual narratives in Stefania Bertola’s romantic fiction,” Journal of Popular Romance Studies 2.1.[4]

Benstock, Shari. 

"Afterword: The New Woman's Fiction." Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction. Ed. Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young. New York: Routledge, 2006. 253-???.

Boyd, Elizabeth B. 

"Ya Yas, Grits, and Sweet Potato Queens: Contemporary Southern Belles and the Prescriptions That Guide Them." Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction. Ed. Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young. New York: Routledge, 2006. 159-172.

Burns, Amy, 2011. 

"'Tell me all about your new man': (Re)Constructing Masculinity in Contemporary Chick Texts." Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network 4.1. Links to abstract and pdf

Butler, Pamela and Jigna Desai. 

“Manolos, Marriage, and Mantras: Chick-Lit Criticism and Transnational Feminism.” Meridians 8.2 (2008): 1-31. Abstract

Campbell, P. 2006. 

"The Sand in the Oyster The Lit of Chick Lit." The Horn Book Magazine. 82 (4):487-491.[5]

Cano López, Marina. 

"Looking Back in Desire; or How Jane Austen Rewrites Chick Lit in Alexandra Potter’s Me and Mr. Darcy." Persuasions 31.1 (2010).[6]

Caselli, Carolyn Ann. 2006.

Chick Lit : postmodern literature for the everywoman. Thesis (M.A.)--California State University, Northridge.

Chen, Eva. 

"Shanghai(ed) Babies: Geopolitics, Biopolitics and the Global Chick Lit." Feminist Media Studies (advanced release 6 Oct. 2011). Abstract

Craddock, Louise. 

"Bridget Jones's Little Red Dress: Chicklit, Mass-market Popular Romance and Feminism." Diegesis: Journal of the Association for Research in Popular Fictions 8 (2004): 43-51. Whole issue as pdf.

D-F

Davis-Kahl, Stephanie. 

"The Case for Chick Lit in Academic Libraries." Collection Building 27.1 (2008): 18-21. Abstract and link to pdf

Dorney, Kate. 

"Shop Boys and Girls! Interpellating Readers as Consumers in Chicklit and Ladlit." Diegesis: Journal of the Association for Research in Popular Fictions 8 (2004): 12-22. Whole issue as pdf.

Dunn, Hannah. 2005.

Making the personal political: reflexivity as neo-feminist activism in Brit-art and Chick-lit. Thesis (M.A.)--University of Colorado.

Ebert, Teresa L. 2009. 

The task of cultural critique. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. [Chapter-Chick lit: "not your mother's romance novels"] Excerpt

Farr, Cecilia Konchar. 2009. 

"It Was Chick Lit All Along: The Gendering of a Genre." In You've Come a Long Way, Baby: Women, Politics, and Popular Culture, 201-214. Lexington, KY: UP of Kentucky, 2009.

Ferriss, Suzanne and Mallory Young. 

"Introduction." Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction. Ed. Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young. New York: Routledge, 2006. 1-16.

Ferriss, Suzanne and Mallory Young. 

“Chicks, Girls and Choice: Redefining Feminism.” Junctures: The Journal for Thematic Dialogue 6 (2006): 87-97. [7]

Ferris, Suzanne. 

"Narrative and Cinematic Doubleness: Pride and Prejudice and Bridget Jones's Diary." Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction. Ed. Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young. New York: Routledge, 2006. 71-84.

Fest, Kerstin. 2009. 

"Angels in the House or Girl Power: Working Women in Nineteenth-Century Novels and Contemporary Chick Lit." Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 38, no. 1: 43-62.

Frater, Lara. 2009. 

"Fat heroines in chick-lit: gateway to acceptance in the mainstream?" in Rothblum, Esther D., and Sondra Solovay. The Fat Studies Reader. New York: New York University Press. 235-240. Excerpt

G-I

Gamble, Sarah. 

"When Romantic Heroines Turn Bad: The Rise of the ‘Anti-Chicklit’ Novel." Chick Lit. Working Papers on the Web 13 (2009). Ed. Sarah Gormley and Sara Mills.[8]

Gennaro, Stephen. 

“Sex and the City: Perpetual Adolescence Gendered Feminine?” Nebula 4.1 (2007). 1 August 2009.[9]

Genz, Stéphanie, and Benjamin A. Brabon. 2009. 

Postfeminism: cultural texts and theories. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. [Chapter - Girl power and chick lit, on pages 76-90.] Excerpt

Gerhard, Jane.

“Sex and the City: Carrie Bradshaw’s Queer Postfeminism.” Feminist Media Studies 5.1 (2005): 37-49.

Gill, Rosalind. 

"Lad lit as mediated intimacy: A postfeminist tale of female power, male vulnerability and toast." Chick Lit. Working Papers on the Web 13 (2009). Ed. Sarah Gormley and Sara Mills.[10]

Gill, Rosalind and Elena Herdieckerhoff. 

"Rewriting the Romance: New Femininities in Chick Lit?" Feminist Media Studies 6.4 (2006): 487-504. [Abstract and pdf available from LSE Research Online]

Gormley, Sarah. 

"Introduction." Chick Lit. Working Papers on the Web 13 (2009). Ed. Sarah Gormley and Sara Mills.[11]

Gorton, Kristyn. 

"'Kiss My Tiara': Chicklit and Female Empowerment." Diegesis: Journal of the Association for Research in Popular Fictions 8 (2004): 23-28. Whole issue as pdf.

Guerrero, Lisa A. 

"'Sistahs Are Doin' It For Themselves': Chick Lit in Black and White." Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction. Ed. Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young. New York: Routledge, 2006. 87-102.

Gymnich, Marion, and Kathrin Ruhl. 2010. 

"Revisiting the Classical Romance: Pride and Prejudice, Bridget Jone's Diary and Bride and Prejudice." In Gendered (Re)Visions: Constructions of Gender in Audiovisual Media, 23-44. Göttingen, Germany: V&R, 2010. Excerpt

Hale, Elizabeth. 

"Long-Suffering Professional Females: The Case of Nanny Lit." Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction. Ed. Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young. New York: Routledge, 2006. 103-118.

Harzewski, Stephanie. 2004. 

"'Chick Lit' and the Urban Code Heroine: Interview Symposium with Caren Lissner, Melissa Senate, Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, and Jennifer Weiner." In Voces de América/American Voices: Entrevistas a escritores americanos/Interviews with American Writers,. Cádiz, Spain: Aduana Vieja, 2004. 689-719.

Harzewski, Stephanie. 

"Tradition and Displacement in the New Novel of Manners." Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction. Ed. Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young. New York: Routledge, 2006. 29–46.

Harzewski, Stephanie. 

"The new novel of manners: Chick lit and postfeminist sexual politics" (January 1, 2006). Dissertations available from ProQuest. Paper AAI3225468. [Abstract http://repository.upenn.edu/dissertations/AAI3225468]

Harzewski, Stephanie. 

Chick Lit and Postfeminism. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2011.

Henry, Astrid. 

“Orgasms and Empowerment. Sex and the City and the Third Wave Feminism.” Reading Sex and the City. Eds. Kim Akass and Janet McCabe. London and New York: I.B.Tauris, 2004. 65-82.

Hewett, Heather. 

"You Are Not Alone: The Personal, the Political and the 'New' Mommy Lit." Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction. Ed. Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young. New York: Routledge, 2006. 119-140.

Horrocks, Clare. 

"Tart Noir: Chicklit with Criminal Balls." Diegesis: Journal of the Association for Research in Popular Fictions 8 (2004): 59-64. Whole issue as pdf.

Hurst, Rochelle. 

 “The Barrister’s Bedmate: Harlequin Mills & Boon and the Bridget Jones Debate.” Australian Feminist Studies 24.62 (2009): 453-468. [Feminist critique of Harlequin Mills & Boons (especially a selection by Emma Darcy) and comparison with Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones novels. For a discussion of why many aspects of this essay's methodology are troubling, from an academic perspective, see this article by Jessica at Read React Review].

Hurt, Erin. 2009. 

"Trading Cultural Baggage for Gucci Luggage: The Ambivalent Latinidad of Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez's "The Dirty Girls Social Club.." MELUS 34, no. 3: 133-153.

Isbister, Georgina C. 

"Chick Lit: A Postfeminist Fairy Tale." Chick Lit. Working Papers on the Web 13 (2009). Ed. Sarah Gormley and Sara Mills.[12]

J-L

Jermyn, Deborah. 

“In Love with Sarah Jessica Parker: Celebrating Female Fandom and Friendship in Sex and the City.” Reading Sex and the City. Eds. Kim Akass and Janet McCabe. London and New York: I.B.Tauris, 2004. 201-217.

Jermyn, Deborah. 

Sex and the City. Detroit: Wayne State Press, 2009.

Johnson, Joanna Webb. 

"Chick Lit Jnr.: More Than Glitz and Glamour for Teens and Tweens." Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction. Ed. Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young. New York: Routledge, 2006. 141-158.

Kaminski, Melissa J. and Robert G. Magee. 

"Does This Book Make Me Look Fat?: The Effect of Protagonist Body Weight and Body Esteem on Female Readers' Body Esteem." Body Image (2012). Abstract

Kent, Paula Rachel. 2007. 

Think pink and high heels: women and beauty as represented in chick lit novels. Thesis (M.A.) Stephenville, Tex: Tarleton State University. Abstract

Kiernan, Anna. 

"No Satisfaction: Sex and the City, Run Catch Kiss, and the Conflict of Desires in Chick Lit's New Heroines." Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction. Ed. Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young. New York: Routledge, 2006. 207-218.

Knowles, Joanne. 

"Editorial." Diegesis: Journal of the Association for Research in Popular Fictions 8 (2004): 3-4. Whole issue as pdf.

Knowles, Joanne. 

"Material Girls: Location and Economics in Chicklit Fiction, Or, How Singletons Finance Their Jimmy Choo Collections." Diegesis: Journal of the Association for Research in Popular Fictions 8 (2004): 37-42. Whole issue as pdf.

Knowles, Joanne. 2008. 

"'Our foes are almost as many as our readers': debating the worth of women's reading and writing--the case of chick-lit." Popular Narrative Media 1.2 (2008): 217-231.

Kohli, Joy. 

Governing Women’s Sexuality in “Sex and the City”: Pleasure, Relationships And Reproduction. Ann Arbor: Proquest, 2008.

Konchar Farr, Cecilia. 

"It Was Chick Lit All Along: The Gendering of a Genre." You've Come A Long Way Baby: Women, Politics, and Popular Culture. Ed. Lilly J. Goren. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2009. 201-214. Excerpt

Lerman, Amy S. 

“Jane Green and the Contemporary ‘Singleton’: Why Women Can Laugh at their Bachelorette Predicaments.” The 2000-2003 Proceedings of the SW/Texas PCA/ACA Conference. Ed. Leslie Fife. 1285-1298.

M-O

Mabry, A. Rochelle. 

"About a Girl: Female Subjectivity and Sexuality in Contemporary 'Chick' Culture." Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction. Ed. Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young. New York: Routledge, 2006. 191-206.

Markle, Gail. 

“Can Women Have Sex Like a Man? Sexual Scripts in Sex and the City.” Sexuality and Culture 12 (2008): 45-57.

Mazza, Cris. 

"Who's Laughing Now? A Short History of Chick Lit and the Perversion of a Genre." Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction. Ed. Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young. New York: Routledge, 2006. 17-28.

Mazza, Cris. 2000. 

"Editing Postfeminist Fiction: Finding the Chic in Lit." Symplokē: A Journal for the Intermingling of Literary, Cultural and Theoretical Scholarship 8, no. 1-2: 101-112.

Merck, Mandy. 

“Sexuality in the City.” Reading Sex and the City. Eds. Kim Akass and Janet McCabe. London and New York: I.B.Tauris, 2004. 48-62.

Moody, Nickianne. 

"Empathy and Irony in the Soundtrack to Chicklit." Diegesis: Journal of the Association for Research in Popular Fictions 8 (2004): 52-58. Whole issue as pdf.

Morrison, Amanda Maria. 2010. 

"Chicanas and 'Chick Lit': Contested Latinidad in the Novels of Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez." Journal of Popular Culture 43, no. 2: 309-329.

Nelson, Ashley. 

“Sister Carrie meets Carrie Bradshaw: Exploring Progress, Politics and the Single Woman in Sex and the City and Beyond.” Reading Sex and the City. Eds. Kim Akass and Janet McCabe. London and New York: I.B.Tauris, 2004. 83-95.

Ommundsen, Wenche. 2008. 

"From China with Love: Chick Lit and the New Crossover Fiction." In China Fictions-English Language: Literary Essays in Diaspora, Memory, Story,. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rodopi. 327-345

Ommundsen, Wenche. 2011. 

"Sex and the Global City: Chick Lit with a Difference." Contemporary Women's Writing 5.2: 107-124. Abstract

Oria, Beatriz, 2012. 

“’Just Say Yes’: the Romanticisation of Love in Sex and the City,” Journal of Popular Romance Studies 3.1.[13]

P-R

Pérez-Serrano, Elena. 

"Chick Lit and Marian Keyes: The ideological background of the genre." Chick Lit. Working Papers on the Web 13 (2009). Ed. Sarah Gormley and Sara Mills.[14]

Perez-Serrano, Elena. 2009. 

"Growing Old Before Old Age: Ageing in the Fiction of Marian Keyes." Educational Gerontology 35, no. 2: 135-145.

Regules, Anne E. 2006. 

Working women re-working the romance: chick-lit from Kate Chopin to Jennifer Weiner and Sex and the City. Thesis (M.A.)--University of Texas at San Antonio.

Ross, Sharon Marie. 

“Talking Sex: Comparison Shopping through Female Conversation in HBO’s Sex and the City.” The Sitcom Reader: America Viewed and Skewed. Eds. Mary M. Dalton and Laura Linder. New York: State University of NY Press, 2005. 111-122.

Rowntree, Margaret, Nicole Moulding and Lia Bryant, 2012. 

"Feminine Sexualities in Chick Lit." Australian Feminist Studies, Volume 27, Issue 72: 121-137. Abstract

Ryan, Mary, 2009. 

‘What a Way to Make a Living: Irish Chick Lit and the Working World.’ MP: An Online Feminist Journal 2.5: 27-41.[15]

Ryan, Mary, 2010. 

"Trivial or Commendable? : Women's Writing, Popular Culture, and Chick Lit." 452F Journal of Comparative Literature 3 (July 2010): 70-84.[16]

Ryan, Mary, 2010. 

"Stepping Out from the Margins: Ireland, Morality, and Representing the ‘Other’ in Irish Chick Lit." Nebula: A Journal of Multidisciplinary Scholarship 7.3: 137-149.[17]

Ryan, Mary, 2011. 

“The Bodies of Chick Lit: Positive Representations of the Female Body in Contemporary Irish Women’s Fiction.” Inquire: A Journal of Comparative Literature 1.1 [18]

Ryan, Mary, 2011. 

“Then and Now: Memories of a Patriarchal Ireland in the Work of Marian Keyes.” 452°F Journal of Comparative Literature 4: 110-130.[19]

Ryan, Mary, 2011. 

"Ending the Silence: Representing Women’s Reproductive Lives in Irish Chick Lit." Nebula: A Journal of Multidisciplinary Scholarship 8.1: 209-224.[20]

Ryan, Mary, 2011. 

‘Amongst Women: Male Romance Authors and Irish Chick Lit Author, Andrew O’Connor’, The Australasian Journal of Popular Culture 1.2: 209-225. Abstract

S-U

Santaemilia, J. 2008. 

The translation of sex-related language: The danger(s) of self-censorship(s). TTR: Traduction, Terminologie et Redaction 21, (2): 221-252

Smith, Caroline J. 2005. 

"Living the Life of a Domestic Goddess: Chick Lit's Response to Domestic-Advice Manuals." Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 34, no. 8: 671-699.

Smith, Caroline J. 2007. 

"The Girls' Guide to Creating Community: Analyzing Reading Communities in Chick Lit." In Narratives of Community: Women's Short Story Sequences,. Newcastle upon Tyne, England: Cambridge Scholars, 2007. 352-371.

Smith, Caroline J. 

Cosmopolitan Culture and Consumerism in Chick Lit. New York: Routledge, 2008. Excerpt

Smyczyńska, Katarzyna. 

"Commitment Phobia and Emotional Fuckwittage: Postmillennial Constructions of Male 'Other' in Chicklit Novels." Diegesis: Journal of the Association for Research in Popular Fictions 8 (2004): 29-36. Whole issue as pdf.

Smyczyńska, Katarzyna. 

The World According to Bridget Jones: Discourses of Identity in Chicklit Fictions. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2007.

Sellei, Nora. 

"Bridget Jones and Hungarian Chick Lit." Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction. Ed. Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young. New York: Routledge, 2006. 173-188.

Tangney, ShaunAnne. 2008. 

"Chick Lit Matters: From Femme Covert to Fendi, Feminine Fiction Provides Feminist Critique." In Honoring Human Herstory: A Celebration of Women's Heritage,. Minot, ND: Minot State University, 2008. 49-63.

Taylor, Anthea. 2011. 

Single Women in Popular Culture: The Limits of Postfeminism.New York: Palgrave Macmillan. [See in particular Chapter 3: "Spinsters and Singletons: Bridget Jones's Diary and its Cultural Reverberations"]

Umminger, Alison. 

"Supersizing Bridget Jones: What's Really Eating the Women in Chick Lit." Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction. Ed. Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young. New York: Routledge, 2006. 239-252.

V-Z

Van Slooten, Jessica Lyn. 

"Fashionably Indebted: Conspicuous Consumption, Fashion, and Romance in Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic Trilogy." Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction. Ed. Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young. New York: Routledge, 2006. 219-238.

Wells, Juliette. 

"Mother of Chick Lit? Women Writers, Readers, and Literary History." Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction. Ed. Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young. New York: Routledge, 2006. 47-70.

Whelehan, Imelda. 

Overloaded: Popular Culture and the Future of Feminism. London: The Women’s Press Ltd., 2000. [Looks at various aspects of popular culture: men's magazines (Loaded, Maxim, GQ); TV shows (Ally McBeal, Sex in the City, Men Behaving Badly) and novels (Bridget Jones' Diary).]

Whelehan, Imelda. 

Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary: A Reader’s Guide. New York: Continuum, 2002. Excerpt

Whelehan, Imelda. 

"Sex and the Single Girl: Helen Fielding, Erica Jong and Helen Gurley Brown." Essays and Studies 2004: Contemporary British Women Writers. Ed. Emma Parker. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2004.

Whelehan, Imelda. 

"High Anxiety: Feminism, Chicklit And Women In The Noughties." Diegesis: Journal of the Association for Research in Popular Fictions 8 (2004): 5-11. Whole issue as pdf.

Whelehan, Imelda. 

"Teening Chick Lit?" Chick Lit. Working Papers on the Web 13 (2009). Ed. Sarah Gormley and Sara Mills.[21]