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]

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.

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.[3]

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).[4]

Caselli, Carolyn Ann. 2006.

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

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. [5]

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.[6]

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

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.[7]

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.[8]

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.

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.[9]

J-L

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.[10]

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.

Ryan, Mary. 2010. 

"Stepping out from the margins: Ireland, morality, and representing the other in Irish chick lit." Nebula 7.3: 137+.

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.

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.[11]