Victor Segalen and the Aesthetics of Diversity: Journeys Between Cultures Book

Well, for what I'm interested in academically/dissertationally, this isn't my bag. However, it is super interesting and well written, so I enjoyed it. (My nerd status is becoming cemented, isn't it?)

Robyn--yes, I know her, too; she looks sort of like an older, funky academic version of Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada--does feminist narratology (long story), so this text, like her others, is concerned with issues of that nature. Her main argument goes something like this: reading is a physical act. It produces physical reactions, like, as the title suggests, crying, but also, facial expressions, quickened breathing, etc. These are called feelings. (She argues successfully for WHY we should call these things feelings, instead of something else, too.) Some of these feelings have been enculturated to be gendered. (She actually makes a brilliant case for the various complications dealing with sex v. gender v. sexuality; therefore, she argues that these feelings are not gendered to be "female" but instead effeminate, though without a negative connotation to the term.)

Then she argues how certain narrative types--serials, marriage plots, soap operas, etc.--are designed to elicit these feelings from us, which then perpetuates the cycle of these pop culture forms being "consumed" by effeminate "consumers" which only keeps the cycle going of why, say, soap operas are "for women." Her close reading of Pretty Woman is spot on (though, at this point, any one who's ever heard of Judith Butler et. al and/or has half a brain can probably do a feminist critique of Julia and Richard's movie), and the amount of scholarship out there on soap operas--the shows themselves, the viewers, etc. is mind-boggling. This was a quick and easy book of the day. Again, not super useful for my work, except the idea of the act of reading producing physical effects in readers. Oh, and she talks about orgasms. So that's fun.