The Ulysses Delusion: Rethinking Standards of Literary Merit [Hardcover]

Popular fiction follows literature professors wherever they go. At coffee shops or out for drinks, after faculty meetings or classes, even at family reunions  they are persistently pressed to talk about bestselling novels. Questions immediately follow: What do I mean when I say a book is good ? Why do contemporary novels like these, conversations like these, matter to professors of literature? Shouldn't they be spending their time re-reading The Great Gatsby? The Ulysses Delusion confronts these questions and answers their call for more engaged conversations about books. Through topics like the Oprah's Book Club, Harry Potter, and Chick Lit, Cecilia Konchar Farr explores the lively, democratic, and gendered history of novels in the US as a context for understanding how avid readers and literary professionals have come to assess them so differently.

Literary professors, and academia in general, have a history of turning a blind eye against popular fiction but why? The Ulysses Delusion explores this question by linking this literary condescension to a wider discussion on the gendered history of reading novels. Topics include Oprah's Book Club, Harry Potter, and Chick Lit.

Preface: Ransoming a Reading Nation
PART I: THE CRIME
1. Come and Get it
2. Bring Money
PART II: INVESTIGATIONS
3. Reading Lolita at St. Kate's
4. Oprah's Book Club and the Summer of Faulkner
5. Lost in a Chick Lit Austenland
6. What I learned from The (Book) Group
7. Storytelling with Jodi Picoult
8. Re-Reading Rand
9. Writing Wizardry
PART III: THE DEAL
10. Redefining Excellence