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 The Way of All Women written by Esther Harding and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2017-03-07 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acclaimed as one of the best works available on feminine psychology from the time it first appeared in 1933, The Way of All Women discusses topics such as work, marriage, motherhood, old age, and women's relationships with family, friends, and lovers. Dr. Harding, who was best known for her work with women and families, stresses the need for a woman to work toward her own wholeness and develop the many sides of her nature, and emphasizes the importance of unconscious processes.
Download or read book Book Clubs written by Elizabeth Long and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2003-08 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Book clubs are everywhere these days. And women talk about the clubs they belong to with surprising emotion. But why are the clubs so important to them? And what do the women discuss when they meet? To answer questions like these, Elizabeth Long spent years observing and participating in women's book clubs and interviewing members from different discussion groups. Far from being an isolated activity, she finds reading for club members to be an active and social pursuit, a crucial way for women to reflect creatively on the meaning of their lives and their place in the social order.
Download or read book The Gender and Psychology Reader written by Blythe Clinchy and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 1998-04 with total page 821 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Touches upon most of the significant and controversial underlying issues involved in the study of gender, including methodological issues. The selections included range from research summaries on particular topics (e.g. gender differences in emotion), to work on development of gendered self-concepts, to discussion of psychology's ambivalence about the study of difference and its failure to systematically consider race, ethnicity, and class. The concluding chapter considers unifying themes, gaps in current perspectives, and future directions. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book Women of Vision written by Eileen A. Gavin, PhD and published by Springer Publishing Company. This book was released on 2007-03-20 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the reviews: "Women of Vision blends biographical narrative with psychological perspectives on human development, resulting in a moving and passionate book that is suitable for both academic and nonacademic readers. It is a useful tool for teaching purposes or for simple, enjoyable, and informative reading." --Psychology of Women Quarterly "...a fascinating look of preservation and perceptiveness that is differentiated from its predecessors in its range of disciplines and emphasis...This new 'life course' approach to understanding female leaders gives valuable insight into the lives of these imminent women, furnishing insights into how the social-economic-political milieu and the attitudes and values of the time played a significant role in the lives of these women but also in all our lives. Women of Vision will serve as a springboard for exploration of how the psychologies of individual human lives affect their life-course and as a galvanizing step for many more future women of vision and leadership....The accounts in the book should be of substantial significance for readers interested in gender issues. However, the book will appeal to an even wider audience. Persons hoping to move in new directions in their own lives (e.g., women looking wistfully at new academic and occupational paths after years in stereotypic niches) can surely also find inspiration in the various accounts."--SirReadaLot.org We all know of women of great vision; women whose efforts and accomplishments have had a major impact on the arts, politics, women's rights, sports, or science. But often we may not understand how they became such powerful agents of change and what sorts of questions we should ask of their pasts to understand how the trajectories of their lives were formed. In this extraordinary textbook, leading experts cast new light on the role of circumstance, accomplishments, and personality in the development of various twentieth-century women of vision. This is a brand new life-course approach to understanding female leaders and gives valuable insight into the lives of such eminent women as Rachel Carson, Evelyn Gentry Hooker, Georgia O'Keeffe, Eleanor Roosevelt, "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias, Ella Fitzgerald, Alice Paul, Lucille Ball, and many others. Study questions and exercises at the end of each chapter further enhance the text. Women of Vision will serve as the springboard for exploration of how the psychologies of individual human lives affect their life-course and a galvanizing step for many more future women of vision and leadership.
Download or read book How to Read a Person Like a Book written by Gerard I. Nierenberg and published by Barnes & Noble Publishing. This book was released on 1994 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique program teaches listeners how to "decode" and reply to non-verbal signals from friends and business associates when those signals are often vague and thus frequenly ignored
Download or read book Reading Women written by Jennifer Phegley and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2005-01-01 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Literary and popular culture has often focused its attention on women readers, particularly since early Victorian times. In Reading Women, an esteemed group of new and established scholars provide a close study of the evolution of the woman reader by examining a wide range of nineteenth- and twentieth-century media, including Antebellum scientific treatises, Victorian paintings, and Oprah Winfrey's televised book club, as well as the writings of Charlotte Brontë, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Zora Neale Hurston. Attending especially to what, how, and why women read, Reading Women brings together a rich array of subjects that sheds light on the defining role the woman reader has played in the formation, not only of literary history, but of British and American culture. The contributors break new ground by focusing on the impact representations of women readers have had on understandings of literacy and certain reading practices, the development of books and print culture, and the categorization of texts into high and low cultural forms.
Download or read book When Women Were Birds written by Terry Tempest Williams and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-02-26 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 54 chapters that unfold like a series of yoga poses, each with its own logic and beauty, Williams creates a lyrical and caring meditation of the mystery of her mother's journals in a book that keeps turning around the question, "What does it mean to have a voice?"
Download or read book Practical Female Psychology for the Practical Man written by Joseph W. South and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2008-05-24 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Practical Female Psychology for the Practical Man is a unique examination of women and relationships in an era of material equality between the sexes. Despite vast gains in the welfare of women, especially in the modern West, both men and women are finding relationships ranging from dating to marriage increasingly difficult. The author draws upon cutting edge science in evolutionary biology, and neuropsychology, and vast personal experience with women to distill some simple and practical principles men will find useful for creating and maintaining relationships with emotionally and sexually compatible women.
Download or read book The Psychology of Reading written by Paula J. Schwanenflugel and published by Guilford Publications. This book was released on 2015-11-05 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Incorporating cognitive, neuropsychological, and sociocultural perspectives, this authoritative text explains the psychological processes involved in reading and describes applications for educational practice. The book follows a clear developmental sequence, from the impact of the early family environment through the acquisition of emergent literacy skills and the increasingly complex abilities required for word recognition, reading fluency, vocabulary growth, and text comprehension. Linguistic and cultural factors in individual reading differences are examined, as are psychological dimensions of reading motivation and the personal and societal benefits of reading. Pedagogical Features *End-of-chapter discussion questions and suggestions for further reading. *Explicit linkages among theory, research, standards (including the Common Core State Standards), and instruction. *Engaging case studies at the beginning of each chapter. *Technology Toolbox explores the pros and cons of computer-assisted learning.
Download or read book Psychology of Women written by Florence Denmark and published by Greenwood. This book was released on 1993 with total page 790 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: .,."The definitive work on the psychology of women....An extraordinary review of contemporary knowledge." Choice
Download or read book Psychology Library Editions Psychology of Reading written by Various Authors and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-03-01 with total page 4060 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The psychology of reading investigates the process by which readers extract visual information from written text and make sense of it. Psychology Library Editions: Psychology of Reading (11 Volumes) brings together as one set, or individual volumes, a small series of previously out-of-print titles, originally published between 1980 and 1995. The set includes topics such as dyslexia and the relationship between speech and reading.
Download or read book Classic and Contemporary Readings in Social Psychology written by Erik J. Coats and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of 30 readings pairs classic and contemporary articles on key social psychology topics to illustrate the contrast between the old and the new - and thus the progress and advances of the various aspects of the entire discipline.
Download or read book Women Reading Kroetsch written by Susan Rudy and published by Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. This book was released on 2010-10-30 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Women, Reading, Kroetsch: Telling the Difference is a book of both practical and theoretical criticism. Some chapters are feminist deconstructive readings of a broad range of the writings of contemporary Canadian poet-critic-novelist Robert Kroetsch, from But We are Exiles to Completed Field Notes. Other chapters self-consciously examine the history and possibility of feminist deconstruction and feminist readings of Kroetsch’s writing by analyzing Kroetsch, Derrida, and Freud on subjectivity and sexuality; Neuman, Hutcheon, and van Herk on Kroetsch. As such, the book speaks out of and about a number of contemporary theoretical discourses, including particular positions within Canadian literary criticism, feminism, postmodernism, and poststructuralism. Written by a woman reader whose theoretical and methodological orientations are both feminist and poststructuralist, Women, Reading, Kroetsch: Telling the Difference problematizes notions of writing, reading, gender, sexuality, and subjectivity in and through Robert Kroetsch’s writings. In this critical study of one writer’s work the author also challenges the traditionally subservient relationship of reader to text and so empowers the feminist reader as well as, if not rather than, the male writer.
Download or read book Readers and Reading written by Andrew Bennett and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-07-15 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much literary criticism focuses on literary producers and their products, but an important part of such work considers the end-user, the reader. It asks such questions as: how far can the author condition the response of the reader, and how much does the reader create the meaning of a text? Dr Bennett's collection includes important essays from such writers and critics as Wolfgang Iser, Mary Jacobus, Roger Chartier, Michel de Certeau, Shoshana Felman, Maurice Blanchot, Paul de Man and Yves Bonnefoy. It looks in turn at deconstructionist, feminist, new historicist and psychoanalytical response to the school. The book then considers the act of reading itself, discussing such issues as the uniqueness of any reading and the difficulties involved in its analysis.
Download or read book Reading from the Underside of Selfhood written by Lisa E. Dahill and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's example of self-sacrificing discipleship has for over fifty years inspired Christians around the world in both their resistance to evil and their devotion to Jesus Christ. Yet for some readers--particularly those who suffer trauma, abuse, and other forms of violence--Bonhoeffer's insistence on self-sacrifice, on becoming a "person for others," may prove more harmful than liberating. For those already socialized into self-abnegation, uncritical applications of Bonhoeffer's teachings may reinforce submission, rather than resistance, to evil. This study explores Bonhoeffer's understandings of selfhood and spiritual formation, both in his own experience and writings and in light of the role of gender in psycho-spiritual development. The central constructive chapter creates a mediated conversation between Bonhoeffer and these feminist psychologists on the spiritual formation of survivors of trauma and abuse, including not only dimensions of his thinking to be critiqued from this perspective but also important resources he contributes toward a truly liberating Christian spirituality for those on the underside of selfhood. The book concludes with suggestions regarding the broader relevance of this study and implications for ministry. The insights for spiritual formation developed here provide powerful proof of Bonhoeffer's continuing and concretely contextualized relevance for readers across the full spectrum of human selfhood.
Download or read book Through the Reading Glass written by Suellen Diaconoff and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2005 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Through the Reading Glass explores the practices and protocols that surrounded women's reading in eighteenth-century France. Looking at texts as various as fairy tales, memoirs, historical romances, short stories, love letters, novels, and the pages of the new female periodical press, Suellen Diaconoff shows how a reading culture, one in which books, sex, and acts of reading were richly and evocatively intertwined, was constructed for and by women. Diaconoff proposes that the underlying discourse of virtue found in women's work was both an empowering strategy, intended to create new kinds of responsible and not merely responsive readers, and an integral part of the conviction that domestic reading does not have to be trivial.
