Pop-Feminist Narratives The Female Subject under Neoliberalism in North America, Britain, and Germany

In Pop-Feminist Narratives, Emily Spiers explores the recent phenomenon of 'pop-feminism' and pop-feminist writing across North America, Britain, and Germany. Pop-feminism is characterised by its engagement with popular culture and consumerism; its preoccupation with sexuality and transgression in relation to female agency; and its thematisation of intergenerational feminist discord, portrayed either as a damaging discursive construct or as a verifiable phenomenon requiring remediation. Central to this volume is the question of theorising the female subject in a postfeminist neoliberal climate and the role played by genre and narrative in the articulation of contemporary pop-feminist politics.

The heightened visibility of mainstream feminist discourse and feminist activism in recent years—especially in North America, Britain, and Germany—means that the time is ripe for a coherent comparative scholarly study of pop-feminism as a transnational phenomenon. This volume provides such an account of pop-feminism in a manner which takes into account the varied and complex narrative strategies employed in the telling of pop-feminist stories across multiple genres and platforms, including pop-literary fiction, the popular 'guide' to feminism, film, music, and the digital.

Emily Spiers, Lecturer in Creative Futures, Institute for Social Futures & Department of Languages and Cultures, Lancaster University

Emily Spiers is the holder of a prestigious Anniversary Lectureship at Lancaster University. Her post as Lecturer in Creative Futures is divided between the Institute for Social Futures and the Department of Languages and Cultures. Her work explores the core role that arts and culture have to play both in imagining and creating better social futures. Previously, Dr Spiers was Lecturer in German and Comparative Literature at the University of St Andrews, a Stipendiary Lecturer in German at Wadham College, Oxford, and a Research Associate with the Authors and the World hub at Lancaster University. She holds a D.Phil. and an M.St. in English and Modern Languages from the University of Oxford.