The Feminist, the Housewife, and the Soap Opera

The Feminist, the Housewife, and the Soap Opera traces the history of the feminist engagement with soap opera using a wide range of sources from programme publicity to interviews with key soap opera scholars. The book reveals that feminist scholarship on soap opera was a significant site ofwhich the identity 'feminist intellectual' was produced in dialogue with her imagined other, the soap opera watching housewife. The book integrates personal autobiographical accounts within a broader history which traces both the move from 'women's liberation' to 'Feminism', and the acceptance ofsoap opera as a serious object of study.

Charlotte Brunsdon teaches in the Department of Film and Television Studies, University of Warwick.