Chick lit to be taught at Harvard this fall!

Since the popularity of Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary (1998) and Melissa Bank's The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing (1999), a debate has raged over whether the ensuing slew of "chick lit" novels -- novels about modern women trying to find their place in the world (both in relationships and at work) -- were serious literature, fluff/froth, both, neither, and whether the term itself was derogatory.

When Curtis Sittenfeld wrote a New York Times review of Melissa Bank's latest novel The Wonder Spot last year, and concluded that it was chick-lit, and that it should have been a little better, many female authors decided that Sittenfeld's review was unfair and snobbish.

Bank herself said she considered the term "chick lit" denigrating, and also said she would never read reviews again because of the Sittenfeld piece.

Meanwhile, women continued to enjoy reading about the struggles of characters like them. The books were studied in a literary way as well, traced back to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Stephanie Hartewski at the U. of Penn (a delightful and kind person) wrote her dissertation on the subject. (I was one of the authors she interviewed in the interview section about their chick lit books.)

And according to the Harvard Crimson, is a little more evidence of the swath chick lit has cut through literature in the last eight or so years: it's going to be taught at Harvard!

Excerpted, the article says:
Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality 1122. “The Romance: From Jane Austen to Chick Lit.” If last spring’s Kaavyagate was any indication that Chick Lit is in, then the Women, Gender, and Sexuality department has certainly taken notice. “The Romance: From Jane Austen to Chick Lit” will compare classic Austen novels to modern revisions such as Bridget Jones’s Diary.

Here's the article.

The course is going to be in the Women, Gender, and Sexuality department.

So how about that, gals?

Chick lit: It isn't just for beaches* anymore. ;)

*Who you callin' a beach?