Sex and the Global City: Chick Lit with a Difference

Ommundsen, Wenche

doi:10.1093/cww/vpq014

Cited by 12 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…A literary festival, also known as a book festival or writers’ festival, is a regular gathering of writers and readers, typically on an annual basis in a particular city (Ommundsen, 2000). A literary festival usually features a variety of presentations and readings by authors as well as other events, delivered over a period of several days, with the primary objectives of promoting the authors’ books and fostering a love of the literature and writing (Elbeshausen, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Festival loyalty to a South African literary arts festival: action speaks louder than words!

Kruger

2019

IJEFM

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to fill the gap in the literature by focusing on the profile and loyalty of visitors to a literary arts festival in South Africa. In addition, this research advocates that festivals can influence visitors’ supplementary behavioural intentions and actions beyond loyalty in the form of literary arts appreciation, purchases and tourism. Design/methodology/approach A visitor survey was conducted at one of the oldest literary arts festivals in the country where a total of 391 completed self-administered questionnaires were obtained. The statistical analyses comprised three factor analyses (motives to attend the festival, satisfaction with the festival offering elements and behavioural intentions) as well as structural equation modelling, to establish the relationship between the motives, evaluation of the “festivalscapes”, behavioural intentions and loyalty. Findings The findings confirmed that literary arts festival loyalty is the principle behavioural intention that will occur after attending a literary arts festival. However, the results demonstrated that literary arts festivals also have the potential to increase and stimulate supplementary behavioural intentions in the form of greater awareness of the arts, increased purchasing behaviour of literary works, increased travel to support the literary arts and greater personal involvement. Practical implications Festivals, irrespective of the art form that they showcase, therefore, play a significant role in encouraging and increasing purchasing behaviour, which is vital to the viability and continuation of the arts industry. Originality/value This is one of the first studies to research the literary arts festival market in South Africa, thereby making a distinct contribution by expanding the literature on the needs of this neglected market and the aspects that influence loyalty to these types of festivals.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Festival loyalty to a South African literary arts festival: action speaks louder than words!

Kruger

2019

IJEFM

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“…It may be useful, however, to draw attention to its main points of critique here, which, as Susanne Gehrmann notes, are ‘(1) its elitism/class bias, (2) its a-politicalness and (3) its commodification’ (2016: 62). The notion's apparent elitism and celebration of commodity culture powerfully resonate with readings of chick-lit as an apolitical, commodified genre that, even in its non-Western forms, frequently papers over ‘harsher and more differentiated historical realities which surround [the heroines]’ (Ommundsen, 2011: 111). Celebratory, commercialised readings of ‘Afropolitans’ and their enjoyment of ‘the good life’ tend to eclipse the fundamentally asymmetrical mobilities that govern their own lives as well as those of less upwardly mobile migrants: ‘Migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea share chilling parallels with the Afropolitan: like the Afropolitan these Africans, too, cross-continents [sic], but in contrast to the Afropolitan narrative centred on Africa rising , these African's are drowning [sic].…”

Section: Beyond the Afropolitan ‘Hipster’mentioning

confidence: 99%

Crossing genre boundaries: H. J. Golakai's Afropolitan chick-lit mysteries

Fasselt

2019

Feminist Theory

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Crime fiction by women writers across the globe has in recent years begun to explore the position of women detectives within post-feminist cultural contexts, moving away from the explicit refusal of the heterosexual romance plot in earlier feminist 'hardboiled' fiction. In this article, I analyse Hawa Jande Golakai's The Lazarus Effect (2011) and The Score (2015) as part of the tradition of crime fiction by women writers in South Africa. Joining local crime writers such as Angela Makholwa, Golakai not only questions orthodox conceptions of gender and sexuality in traditional iterations of the crime novel, but also combines elements of chick-lit with the crime plot. Reading the archetypal quest structure of the two genres against the background of Sara Ahmed's cultural critique of happiness, I argue that Golakai inventively recasts the recent sub-genre of the chick-lit mystery from the perspective of an Afropolitan detective. Her detective tenaciously undercuts the future-directed happiness script that structures conventional chick-lit and detective novels with their respective focus on finding a fulfilling heterosexual, monogamous romantic relationship, and the resolution of the crime and restoration of order. In this way, the novels defy the frequently assumed apolitical nature of chick-lit texts and also allow us to reimagine the idea of Afropolitanism, outside of its dominant consumerist form, as a critical Afropolitanism that emerges from an openness to be affected by the unhappiness and suffering of others.

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“…She claims that their aim is "not a wholesale revolt, and, significantly, it is never aimed against their religion". 7 Mawdawi al-Rasheed continues this line of inquiry and, in a more critical approach, comments that their work lacks any political dimension. 8 According to her, these works and the "women's issue" in Saudi Arabia in general "all combine to boost state legitimacy at a critical moment in its quest for new recognition".…”

Section: Beyond a Secularist Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Young Saudi Women Novelists: Protesting Clericalism, Religious Fanaticism and Patriarchal Gender Order

Kanie¹

2017

Journal of Arabian Studies

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From the early 1990s Saudi Arabia witnessed a significant surge in women's writing, especially of novels. This was not a temporary phenomenon but continued into the new millennium, at which time a new generation of young woman novelists emerged who developed a deeper critique of the Saudi state and society than their predecessors in the 1990s. Three well-known and challenging novels are examined: Raja ʾ al-Saniʿ's Banat al-Riyadh [Girls of Riyadh] (2005), Warda Abd al-Malik's Al-awba [Return] (2008), and Samar al-Muqrin's Nisaʾ al-munkar [Women of Vice] (2008). It is argued that a fundamental aspect of these works is their critique of religion, or at least of clerics and their discourse which, in the case of Saudi Arabia, is a profound act. It identifies two approaches by the authors: the individualization of religion and especially the re-articulation of the image of God as a friendly and humanistic God, in contrast to the official discourse; and the development of a strong anti-clerical discourse.

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Sex and the Global City: Chick Lit with a Difference

Cited by 12 publications

References 5 publications

Festival loyalty to a South African literary arts festival: action speaks louder than words!

Festival loyalty to a South African literary arts festival: action speaks louder than words!

Crossing genre boundaries: H. J. Golakai's Afropolitan chick-lit mysteries

Young Saudi Women Novelists: Protesting Clericalism, Religious Fanaticism and Patriarchal Gender Order

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