Download or read book Reading the Romance written by Janice A. Radway and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2009-11-18 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1984, Reading the Romance challenges popular (and often demeaning) myths about why romantic fiction, one of publishing's most lucrative categories, captivates millions of women readers. Among those who have disparaged romance reading are feminists, literary critics, and theorists of mass culture. They claim that romances enforce the woman reader's dependence on men and acceptance of the repressive ideology purveyed by popular culture. Radway questions such claims, arguing that critical attention "must shift from the text itself, taken in isolation, to the complex social event of reading." She examines that event, from the complicated business of publishing and distribution to the individual reader's engagement with the text. Radway's provocative approach combines reader-response criticism with anthropology and feminist psychology. Asking readers themselves to explore their reading motives, habits, and rewards, she conducted interviews in a midwestern town with forty-two romance readers whom she met through Dorothy Evans, a chain bookstore employee who has earned a reputation as an expert on romantic fiction. Evans defends her customers' choice of entertainment; reading romances, she tells Radway, is no more harmful than watching sports on television. "We read books so we won't cry" is the poignant explanation one woman offers for her reading habit. Indeed, Radway found that while the women she studied devote themselves to nurturing their families, these wives and mothers receive insufficient devotion or nurturance in return. In romances the women find not only escape from the demanding and often tiresome routines of their lives but also a hero who supplies the tenderness and admiring attention that they have learned not to expect. The heroines admired by Radway's group defy the expected stereotypes; they are strong, independent, and intelligent. That such characters often find themselves to be victims of male aggression and almost always resign themselves to accepting conventional roles in life has less to do, Radway argues, with the women readers' fantasies and choices than with their need to deal with a fear of masculine dominance. These romance readers resent not only the limited choices in their own lives but the patronizing atitude that men especially express toward their reading tastes. In fact, women read romances both to protest and to escape temporarily the narrowly defined role prescribed for them by a patriarchal culture. Paradoxically, the books that they read make conventional roles for women seem desirable. It is this complex relationship between culture, text, and woman reader that Radway urges feminists to address. Romance readers, she argues, should be encouraged to deliver their protests in the arena of actual social relations rather than to act them out in the solitude of the imagination. In a new introduction, Janice Radway places the book within the context of current scholarship and offers both an explanation and critique of the study's limitations.

Download or read book In Praise of Love written by Alain Badiou and published by New Press/ORIM. This book was released on 2012-11-27 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The renowned French philosopher’s “ode to love’s power to unite in the face of eternity, and its optimism in the face of pain” (Publishers Weekly). In a world rife with consumerism, where online dating promises risk-free romance and love is all too often seen as a mere variant of desire and hedonism, Alain Badiou believes that love is under threat. Taking to heart Rimbaud’s famous line “love needs reinventing,” In Praise of Love is the celebrated French intellectual’s passionate treatise in defense of love. For Badiou, love is an existential project, a constantly unfolding quest for truth. This quest begins with the chance encounter, an event that forever changes two individuals, challenging them “to see the world from the point of view of two rather than one.” This, Badiou believes, is love’s most essential transforming power. Through thought-provoking dialogue edited from a conversation between Badiou and Truong, a vibrant cast of thinkers are invoked: Kierkegaard, Plato, de Beauvoir, Proust, and more, create a new narrative of love in the face of twenty-first-century modernity. Moving, zealous, and wise, Badiou’s “paean to the anticapitalist, antiessentialist, unifying power of love” urges us not to fear it but to see it as a magnificent undertaking that compels us to explore others and to move away from an obsession with ourselves (Publishers Weekly). “Finally, the cure for the pornographic, utilitarian exchange of favors to which love has been reduced in America. Alain Badiou is our philosopher of love.” —Simon Critchley, author of The Faith of the Faithless

Download or read book Modern Romance written by Aziz Ansari and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-06-14 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The #1 New York Times Bestseller “An engaging look at the often head-scratching, frequently infuriating mating behaviors that shape our love lives.” —Refinery 29 A hilarious, thoughtful, and in-depth exploration of the pleasures and perils of modern romance from Aziz Ansari, the star of Master of None and one of this generation’s sharpest comedic voices At some point, every one of us embarks on a journey to find love. We meet people, date, get into and out of relationships, all with the hope of finding someone with whom we share a deep connection. This seems standard now, but it’s wildly different from what people did even just decades ago. Single people today have more romantic options than at any point in human history. With technology, our abilities to connect with and sort through these options are staggering. So why are so many people frustrated? Some of our problems are unique to our time. “Why did this guy just text me an emoji of a pizza?” “Should I go out with this girl even though she listed Combos as one of her favorite snack foods? Combos?!” “My girlfriend just got a message from some dude named Nathan. Who’s Nathan? Did he just send her a photo of his penis? Should I check just to be sure?” But the transformation of our romantic lives can’t be explained by technology alone. In a short period of time, the whole culture of finding love has changed dramatically. A few decades ago, people would find a decent person who lived in their neighborhood. Their families would meet and, after deciding neither party seemed like a murderer, they would get married and soon have a kid, all by the time they were twenty-four. Today, people marry later than ever and spend years of their lives on a quest to find the perfect person, a soul mate. For years, Aziz Ansari has been aiming his comic insight at modern romance, but for Modern Romance, the book, he decided he needed to take things to another level. He teamed up with NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg and designed a massive research project, including hundreds of interviews and focus groups conducted everywhere from Tokyo to Buenos Aires to Wichita. They analyzed behavioral data and surveys and created their own online research forum on Reddit, which drew thousands of messages. They enlisted the world’s leading social scientists, including Andrew Cherlin, Eli Finkel, Helen Fisher, Sheena Iyengar, Barry Schwartz, Sherry Turkle, and Robb Willer. The result is unlike any social science or humor book we’ve seen before. In Modern Romance, Ansari combines his irreverent humor with cutting-edge social science to give us an unforgettable tour of our new romantic world.

Download or read book Heart Smart written by Smartypants Romance and published by . This book was released on 2021-03-02 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Interpretations of Love written by Jane Campbell and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2024-08-20 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A profound debut novel that explores complicated love, secrets, and familial misunderstandings from the celebrated octogenarian author of the “trail-blazing” (Oprah Daily) collection Cat Brushing During the week of Dr. Agnes Stacey’s daughter’s wedding, each of the eleven attendees in the small family gathering brings their own simmering tensions. Agnes’s uncle, Professor Malcolm Miller, has harbored a family secret since Agnes’s parents died in a car crash when she was a young girl. Dr. Joseph Bradshaw, who married into the family, has nursed a private obsession with Agnes since his brief stint as her therapist. Agnes herself is returning to her ex-husband’s home for the first time, just as she’s trying to extricate herself from a potent new love affair. Each one of these three has the tools to analyze the love lives of others, yet find themselves challenged to recognize the love in their own lives. As they all emerge from painful years in emotional isolation, Malcolm considers where better to lay bare the failures and secrets of one’s advancing age than at an intimate celebration of love? In this incisive and lively novel, Campbell parses the inner lives of ordinary people doing their best to process aftershocks of war, the parenting they do and don’t receive, and the many different forms love can take in one family.

Download or read book The History of Love A Novel written by Nicole Krauss and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2006-05-17 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ONE OF THE MOST LOVED NOVELS OF THE DECADE. A long-lost book reappears, mysteriously connecting an old man searching for his son and a girl seeking a cure for her widowed mother's loneliness. Leo Gursky taps his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbor know he’s still alive. But it wasn’t always like this: in the Polish village of his youth, he fell in love and wrote a book…Sixty years later and half a world away, fourteen-year-old Alma, who was named after a character in that book, undertakes an adventure to find her namesake and save her family. With virtuosic skill and soaring imaginative power, Nicole Krauss gradually draws these stories together toward a climax of "extraordinary depth and beauty" (Newsday).

Download or read book Romance written by Barbara Fuchs and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Often derided as an inferior form of literature, "romance" as a literary mode or genre defies satisfactory definition, dividing critics, scholars and readers alike." "Romance is a clear and wide-ranging introduction for students of literary history, comparative literature and modern literary forms. It is also a convincing case for a literary concept too often set to one side."--BOOK JACKET.

Download or read book The Romance of Reality written by Bobby Azarian and published by BenBella Books. This book was released on 2022-06-28 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do we exist? For centuries, this question was the sole province of religion and philosophy. But now science is ready to take a seat at the table. According to the prevailing scientific paradigm, the universe tends toward randomness; it functions according to laws without purpose, and the emergence of life is an accident devoid of meaning. But this bleak interpretation of nature is currently being challenged by cutting-edge findings at the intersection of physics, biology, neuroscience, and information theory—generally referred to as “complexity science.” Thanks to a new understanding of evolution, as well as recent advances in our understanding of the phenomenon known as emergence, a new cosmic narrative is taking shape: Nature’s simplest “parts” come together to form ever-greater “wholes” in a process that has no end in sight. In The Romance of Reality, cognitive neuroscientist Bobby Azarian explains the science behind this new view of reality and explores what it means for all of us. In engaging, accessible prose, Azarian outlines the fundamental misunderstanding of thermodynamics at the heart of the old assumptions about the universe’s evolution, and shows us the evidence that suggests that the universe is a “self-organizing” system, one that is moving toward increasing complexity and awareness. Cosmologist and science communicator Carl Sagan once said of humanity that “we are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” The Romance of Reality shows that this poetic statement in fact rests on a scientific foundation and gives us a new way to know the cosmos, along with a riveting vision of life that imbues existence with meaning—nothing supernatural required.

Download or read book Historical Romance Fiction written by Lisa Fletcher and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-22 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book-length study of romance novels to focus on issues of sexuality rather than gender, Historical Romance Fiction moves the ongoing debate about the value and appeal of heterosexual romance onto new ground, testing the claims of cutting-edge critical theorists on everything from popular classics by Georgette Heyer, to recent 'bodice rippers,' to historical fiction by John Fowles and A.S. Byatt. Beginning with her nomination of 'I love you' as the romance novel's defining speech act, Lisa Fletcher engages closely with speech-act theory and recent studies of performativity. The range of texts serves to illustrate Fletcher's definition of historical romance as a fictional mode dependent on the force and familiarity of the speech act, 'I love you', and permits Fletcher to provide a detailed account of the genre's history and development in both its popular and 'literary' manifestations. Written from a feminist and anti-homophobic perspective, Fletcher's subtle arguments about the romantic speech act serve to demonstrate the genre's dependence on repetition ('Romance can only quote') and the shaky ground on which the romance's heterosexual premise rests. Her exploration of the subgenre of cross-dressing novels is especially revealing in this regard. With its deft mix of theoretical arguments and suggestive close readings, Fletcher's book will appeal to specialists in genre, speech act and performativity theory, and gender studies.

Download or read book The Five Love Languages written by Gary Chapman and published by Moody Publishers. This book was released on 2009-12-17 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marriage should be based on love, right? But does it seem as though you and your spouse are speaking two different languages? #1 New York Times bestselling author Dr. Gary Chapman guides couples in identifying, understanding, and speaking their spouse's primary love language-quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, or physical touch. By learning the five love languages, you and your spouse will discover your unique love languages and learn practical steps in truly loving each other. Chapters are categorized by love language for easy reference, and each one ends with simple steps to express a specific language to your spouse and guide your marriage in the right direction. A newly designed love languages assessment will help you understand and strengthen your relationship. You can build a lasting, loving marriage together. Gary Chapman hosts a nationally syndicated daily radio program called A Love Language Minute that can be heard on more than 150 radio stations as well as the weekly syndicated program Building Relationships with Gary Chapman, which can both be heard on fivelovelanguages.com. The Five Love Languages is a consistent New York Times bestseller - with over 5 million copies sold and translated into 38 languages. This book is a sales phenomenon, with each year outselling the prior for 16 years running!

Download or read book The Making of Romantic Love written by William M. Reddy and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2012-07-09 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the twelfth century, the Catholic Church attempted a thoroughgoing reform of marriage and sexual behavior aimed at eradicating sexual desire from Christian lives. Seeking a refuge from the very serious condemnations of the Church and relying on a courtly culture that was already preoccupied with honor and secrecy, European poets, romance writers, and lovers devised a vision of love as something quite different from desire. Romantic love was thus born as a movement of covert resistance. In The Making of Romantic Love: Longing and Sexuality in Europe, South Asia, and Japan, William M. Reddy illuminates the birth of a cultural movement that managed to regulate selfish desire and render it innocent—or innocent enough. Reddy strikes out from this historical moment on an international exploration of love, contrasting the medieval development of romantic love in Europe with contemporaneous eastern traditions in Bengal and Orissa, and in Heian Japan from 900-1200 CE, where one finds no trace of an opposition between love and desire. In this comparative framework, Reddy tells an appealing tale about the rise and fall of various practices of longing, underscoring the uniqueness of the European concept of sexual desire.

Download or read book Making Meaning in Popular Romance Fiction written by Jayashree Kamblé and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-08-07 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite pioneering studies, the term 'romance novel' itself has not been subjected to scrutiny. This book examines mass-market romance fiction in the U.K., Canada, and the U.S. through four categories: capitalism, war, heterosexuality, and white Protestantism and casts a fresh light on the genre.

Download or read book We written by Robert A. Johnson and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-03-05 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides an illuminating explanation of the origins and meaning of romantic love and shows how a proper understanding of its psychological dynamics can revitalize our most important relationships.

Download or read book The Art of Courtly Love written by Andreas (Capellanus.) and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The social system of 'courtly love' soon spread after becoming popularized by the troubadours of southern France in the twelfth century. This book codifies life at Queen Eleanor's court at Poitiers between 1170 and 1174 into "one of those capital works which reflect the thought of a great epoch, which explain the secret of a civilization."

Download or read book Making Meaning in Popular Romance Fiction written by Jayashree Kamblé and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-08-07 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite pioneering studies, the term 'romance novel' itself has not been subjected to scrutiny. This book examines mass-market romance fiction in the U.K., Canada, and the U.S. through four categories: capitalism, war, heterosexuality, and white Protestantism and casts a fresh light on the genre.

Download or read book Reason and Romance in Literature written by Dan Patrick Geyer and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Your Dreams of Sex Love Romance and What They Mean written by Laura Suzanne and published by Booktango. This book was released on 2016-06-15 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is your guide to understanding your dreams and deciphering what they mean. This book was originally a compilation of newspaper columns featuring dreams submitted to me by my readers and my interpretation of their dreams. Being that were well over one hundred dreams in the collection, I chose to make this into three separate books broken down by category. This book, the first in a three-part series, is all about your dreams of sex, love and romance interpreted. I have used real life dreams from actual readers to illustrate my points and my interpretations of these dreams. There will also be exercises for you, the reader, to give personal meaning to your dreams and decode the messages from your subconscious mind.