Women, popular culture, and the eighteenth century [Texte imprimé] / edited by Tiffany Potter

"In contemporary pop culture, the pursuits regarded as the most frivolous are typically understood to be more feminine in nature than masculine. This collection illustrates how ideas of the popular and the feminine were assumed to be equally naturally intertwined in the eighteenth century, and the ways in which that association facilitates the ongoing trivialization of both. Top scholars in eighteenth-century studies examine the significance of the parallel devaluations of women's culture and popular culture by looking at theatres and actresses; novels, magazines, and cookbooks; and populist politics, dress, and portraiture. They also assess how eighteenth-century women have been re-imagined in contemporary historical fiction, films, and television, from the works of award-winner Beryl Bainbridge to Darcymania and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. By reconsidering the cultural and social practices of eighteenth-century women, this fascinating volume reclaims the ostensibly trivial as a substantive cultural contribution."--Publisher's website

Notes bibliogr.

Part I: Performance, fashion, and the politics of the popular. 1. Historicizing the popular and the feminine: The rape of the lock and Pride and prejudice and zombies / Tiffany Potter -- 'The assemblage of every female folly': Lavinia Fenton, Kitty Clive and the genesis of ballad opera / Berta Joncus -- Politics and gender in a tale of two plays / Paula Backscheider -- Celebrity status: the eighteenth-century actress as fashion icon / Jessica Munns -- Fanning the flames: women, fashion and politics / Elaine Chalus -- Part II: Women, reading, and writing. The culinary art of eighteenth-century women cookbook authors / Robert James Merrett -- Women and letters / Isobel Grundy -- Writing bodies in popular culture: Eliza Haywood and Love in excess / Holly Luhning -- Women reading and writing for The rambler / Peter Sabor -- 'The most dangerous talent': riddles as feminine pastime / Mary Chadwick -- Comic prints, the picturesque and fashion: seeing and being seen in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey / Timothy Erwin -- Part III: Eighteenth-century women in modern popular culture. Mother and daughter in Beryl Bainbridge's According to queeney / Martha F. Bowden -- The agency of things in Emma Donoghue's Slammerkin / Elizabeth Kowaleski Wallace -- 'Would you have us laughed out of Bath?': shopping around for fashion and fashionable fiction in Jane Austen adaptations / Tamara S. Wagner -- Visualizing empire in domestic settings: designing Persuasion for the screen / Andrew MacDonald and Gina MacDonald -- From Pride and prejudice to Lost in Austen and back again: reading television reading novels / Claire Grogan