The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #169: Saskia Vogel
“Understanding that you can have what you desire can be healing and transformative.”
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Posts Tagged: Fifty Shades of Grey
(K)ink: Writing While Deviant: Kirsten Irving
The pressure to prove ourselves can have a distorting effect, causing us to doubt our instincts in favor of following others we perceive to be experts or “genuine.”
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(K)ink: Writing While Deviant: Sassafras Lowrey
I discovered leather nearly fifteen years ago, at eighteen, right around the time I started writing.
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The Rumpus Interview with Arielle Greenberg
Arielle Greenberg talks about her new collection, Locally Made Panties, the possibility of feminist pornography, and curating her Rumpus column, (K)ink: Writing While Deviant.
...moreFifty Shades of Sexism
A new academic study published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior has found that young women who read and enjoy Fifty Shades of Gray are more likely to hold sexist attitudes: The researchers found that those who had completed at least the first book in the trilogy had “stronger ambivalent, hostile, and benevolent sexist […]
...moreThis Week in Indie Boosktores
A charity bookstore in Swansea, Wales, had so many copies of Fifty Shades of Gray that the store built a fort. A Georgia store needs a superhero after more than $200,000 worth of comic books were stolen. One of the Hong Kong booksellers who disappeared last year amidst mainland China’s censorship sweep has vowed to […]
...moreA Very Busy Penis
E.L. James is releasing a new book for the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise. The latest iteration of the popular pornographic pulp fiction is told from the perspective of Christian Grey. And sometimes from the point of view of his penis. The Gawker Review of Books has a rundown of all the things Christian Grey’s […]
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Stepfatherhood
“He was my real dad,” she says. “I just happened to have two.”
...moreFanfiction in the Classroom
At The Millions, Elizabeth Minkel shares her take on fanfiction and its place within the classroom.
...moreLike Whatever
Art is problematic. Humans are problematic. Roxane Gay is a bad feminist. We know this, yet still we attack each other for liking Lil Wayne or Fifty Shades of Grey. Flavorwire‘s Sarah Seltzer wants us to stop telling women what they can and can’t like: I wouldn’t abandon the practice of critiquing art for its political […]
...moreFifty More Shades of Grey (And Counting)
Prospects for your serialized proto-fictional new generation adaptation of The Hunger Games are bright. As fan fiction solidifies its status as a literary genre in its own right, publishers are catching on: …what was once viewed as either uncreative, a legal morass of copyright issues, or both, is now seen as a potential savior for […]
...moreMr. Difficult, Mr. Easy
Is Moby-Dick really a tougher read than Fifty Shades of Grey? Noah Berlatsky argues that the distinction depends on the reader: …”difficulty” seems to hold out the possibility of more objective standards—to assure us that these books, over here, by Joyce and Faulkner, are 1000 pounds of pure prose, while these books over there, by […]
...moreConversation Starters
What do Fifty Shades of Grey and Tristram Shandy have in common? They’ve both started a lot of conversations. In the New York Review of Books, Tim Parks tries to figure out what separates the books we talk about from the books we don’t.
...moreCan Poptimism Save Literary Culture?
Literary criticism suffers from elitism, claims Elisabeth Donnelly over at Flavorwire, and the solution is introducing a poptimism revolution. The term poptimism originated in the music world as a reaction to stodgy music reviewers’ love of Bob Dylan and “argues for a more inclusive view of what matters and what’s pleasurable in music.” Donnelly insists […]
...moreFanfiction Gathers Force
Ever since Fifty Shades of Grey, originally written with characters from Twilight as its protagonists, struck gold, the mainstream publishing world has had to take a closer look at fanfiction. In the (increasingly unlikely) event you’re unfamiliar with the world of fanfiction, Ewan Morrison breaks it down for you at the Guardian, from the Gospels to 1913’s Old Friends […]
...moreWhat Makes a Book Not Worth Finishing?
Is it that you don’t connect to the characters, or that the writing is weak? Maybe there’s one too many typos or the plot seems implausible. Goodreads has created an infographic about the most abandoned books (Fifty Shades of Grey is among them) and the reasons for their abandonment based on the book reviews left […]
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The Trouble With Prince Charming or He Who Trespassed Against Us
I enjoy fairy tales because I need to believe, despite my cynicism, that there is a happy ending for everyone, for me.
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