Week 7: Series Books and Feminist Theory

Hi everyone,

On Tuesday we'll be discussing series books. Series books are generally defined as a sequence of four or more books that are written by the same author, include the same characters, and have either similar plots or an on-going plot through the series. (They do, in general, stand alone so that you don't necessarily have to read them in any order.) As the Cart reading mentioned, this trend in publishing for YAs really got going in the 1980s. Series books are generally valued by educators because they help readers gain reading fluency, rather than for their literary merit. Sometimes series books are examined as popular culture. As always, feel free to disagree!

Please write about the series book you have selected. Include a full citation so that we can talk about who published the book, the copyright date, etc. Possible paper topics:

• What is the relationship between the book you've selected and the rest of the series? Does the text suggest a "formula"? Is it possible to read one of the texts as a stand alone piece or does the series build on itself? This might be a time to look at the "paratext" (Gennette 1997) of the story: the front and back covers, dedication, the preview of the next book in the series, etc.
• What do you notice about the text when you read it through a critical theory? Is there any relationship between the "formula" or genre and the constructions of [class] in the text?
• Who seem to be the implied readers of the text? Who does the text invite the reader to be or value or want? How is the YA constructed in the text? What do you think of those invitations?
• Explore an intertextual connection. For example, connections between series books or between a series books and the spin off texts/merchandice.
• Feel free to write about another topic!

Although I've encouraged people to focus on small chunks of text in their papers, this might be a week where it might make sense to think about a text as a whole or even across texts. For example, if you are interested in thinking about whether the book you've selected falls into the category of "formula fiction" or whether it represents a recognizable genre, it might make sense to think about how the plot as a whole is or is not formulaic in the series. Of course, how you define the limits of the text that you analyze will always depend on what you are interested in analyzing! I can certainly imagine doing a close reading of a quote from a series book.

On Thursday we'll hear from the Feminist Theory Group!

Valerie