Masters Theses

Date of Award

12-1999

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Major

English

Major Professor

Kenneth Mostern

Committee Members

Janet Atwill, Misty Anderson

Abstract

In this study, I seek to understand the constellation of behaviors and practices that have gone into bringing reading to the American public from 1996 to the present by situating Oprah's Book Club within a particular historical moment which defines itself, ironically, by obscuring and denying its own historicity. In the Introduction, I argue that this phenomenon happens by the influence of the Book-of-the-Month Club, the middle-class movement that preceded it. I then describe how this particular relationship to history produces the Oprah Book Club show methodology, which then produces the cult of personality on the show, including the parasocial relationship between Winfrey and the viewer. This parasocial relationship, which is controlled by the dominant ideology, cements the entire process and keeps readings simple and personal, rather than complex and structural. In chapter 2, I describe the structure of a typical Oprah Book Club show, focusing on how the methodology of the show encourages the cultural and subjective blindness of viewers and participants. In chapter 3, I study the book club show over Bernard Schlink's The Reader, using it as the quintessential example of how the problem of history manifests itself on a Book Club show. In subsequent chapters, I study shows which deal explicitly with race and gender, showing how these topics too, become areas of misreading.

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