Professor of English and American Studies Carol Flynn lectured yesterday about "girls' books," a literary genre that she described as having a profound impact on readers' images of femininity.
The presentation, given in front of an audience of over 40 people in Sophia Gordon Hall, was part of the Fourth Annual Women's Studies Research Colloquium. Flynn's lecture was the last of the three talks that comprised the event.
Flynn zeroed in on her years of studying and teaching the girls' books genre, which is also the subject of an English course she is teaching this semester.
She said there are a number of key elements that are present in nearly all girls' books.
First, she said, is the profound effect that the works tend to have on readers and the unique way in which the stories stick with those who read them. Readers tend to remember different parts of the books more than others as time goes on, thus reinventing the stories to their liking in their own minds.
"The readers frequently forget, and then rewrite, the girls' books that they have read," Flynn said.
She also discussed the other, more content-based aspects of girls' books, which include recurring themes that deal with values, materialism and imagination.
"The values that emerge are always contradictory, and it is the self-contradiction of these values that make [girls' books] so perfect for women's studies," she said.
According to Flynn, this apparent contradiction can be influenced by the author's interaction with the characters in her book. She cited the award-winning author Louise Fitzhugh, a lesbian whose portrayal of the main character in her work "Harriet the Spy" broke from the stereotypically romantic vision of the female heroine in 1960s literature.
Flynn also noted that creativity is a common characteristic of many female characters in the girls' books genre.
"Imagination is most valued in every girls' book worth [its] salt," she said.
She devoted much of her lecture to the prominence of material goods in girls' books.
"A good girls' book has a material core," she said.
Flynn also read excerpts from Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women," as well as from other works, including Lucy Maud Montgomery's "Anne of Green Gables," Kate Douglas Wiggin's "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm," and what she described as her favorite book, "Nancy and Plum," by Betty MacDonald.
Motifs she claimed were prominent in these books include the loss of a parent and the importance of food.
Early in her talk, Flynn explained that her interest in girls' books began after her father's death, a time in her life during which she was exposed to many of the works that comprise the genre.
"All the things that I both admired ... and despised were there in girls' books," she said.
After Flynn's talk, senior Erica Shipow, an English major, discussed her research for her thesis on modern girls' books and the ways in which she believes they may influence young readers' perceptions of femininity and of themselves.
She said common themes that authors harp on include money, alcohol and drugs.
"You kind of wonder what messages they're sending to young girls, she said," "And [you wonder]: Where does the empowerment come from?"
