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Introduction: Conceptions of Girlhood Now and Then: “Girls’ Literature” and Beyond

This article describes and discusses experiences of teaching popular romance in Sweden, a country where the genre has been more or less invisible until recent years. Starting with an overview of the status and visibility of popular romance in Sweden, our experiences of designing and revising a course on romance is presented. Our projects providing textbooks for students are presented and we share both pitfalls and rewards we have experienced giving this course.

Review/Recension

Review/Recension

Nicklas Hållén om WARWICK RESEARCH COLLECTIVE COMBINED AND UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT. TOWARDS A NEW THEORY OF WORLD-LITERATURE Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2015 (196 s.) Maria Nilson om DAG HEDMAN & JERRY MÄÄTTÄ (RED.) BROTT, KÄRLEK, FRÄMMANDE VÄRLDAR. TEXTER OM POPULÄRLITTERATUR Lund: Studentlitteratur, 2015 (509 s.) Göran Rossholm om INGEBORG LÖFGREN INTERPRETIVE SKEPTICISM. STANLEY CAVELL, NEW CRITICISM, AND LITERARY INTERPRETATION Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 2015, 366 s. (diss. Uppsala) Ann Steiner om MOA MATTHIS ”TAKE A TASTE”. SELLING ISAK DINESEN’S SEVEN GOTHIC TALES IN 1934 Umeå: Institutionen för språkstudier, Umeå Universitet, 2014, 200 s. (diss. Umeå) Johanna Sjöstedt om TOVE PETTERSEN & ANNLAUG BJØRSNØS (RED.) SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR. A HUMANIST THINKER Leiden och Boston: Brill Rodopi 2015, 215 s. Tanja von Dahlern om EMMA TORNBORG WHAT LITERATURE CAN MAKE US SEE. POETRY, INTERMEDIALITY, MENTAL IMAGERY Malmö: Bokbox, 2014, 160 s. (diss. Linnéuniversitetet) Carina Agnesdotter om EBBA WITT-BRATTSTRÖM STÅ I BREDD. 70-TALETS KVINNOR, MÄN OCH LITTERATUR Stockholm: Norstedts, 2014, 280 s.

PURPOSE:To assess nuclear and cortical opacities through the objective analysis of Scheimpflug images, and to check the correlation with the Lens Opacity Classification System III (LOCS III). METHODS:Nuclear and cortical opacities were graded according to the LOCS III rules after pupil dilation. The maximum and average pixel intensity values along an elliptical mask within the lens nucleus were taken to analyse nuclear cataracts. A new metric based on the percentage of opaque pixels within a region of interest was used to analyse cortical cataracts. The percentage of opaque pixels was also calculated for half, third and quarter areas from the region of interest's periphery. RESULTS:The maximum and average intensity values along the nucleus were directly proportional to the LOCS III grade: The larger the LOCS III value, the larger maximum and average intensity ones. These metrics showed a positive and significant correlation with the LOCS grade: The larger the LOCS grade, the higher was percentage of opaque pixels along the cortex within the same mask's size. This metric showed a significant correlation to the LOCS grade. CONCLUSION:The metrics used to assess nuclear opacities showed good correlation with the LOCS III. The percentage of opaque pixels showed to be a useful metric to measure objectively the severity of the cortical opacity. These metrics could be implemented in an algorithm to detect and grade lens opacities automatically and objectively.

Review/Recension

E.L. James’s Fifty Shades trilogy has become a huge success and soldmillions of copies. The novels’ mix of romance and erotica has beendescribed as something new. Reading these books mainly as romance, Nilson focuses on how James uses well known and established romance traits from, for example, the so-called “bodice-ripper” novel and chick lit, in order to create a hybrid. These traits arevisible in both how James describes her protagonists and in howthe relationship between them is portrayed. Nilson argues that theFifty Shades trilogy is, rather than a new kind of romance, a compilation of well-established traits.

The article focuses on an example of chick lit jr., Meg Cabot’s Airhead-trilogy, and how feminism, postfeminism and girlpower are discussed in this text. The novels portray a conflict between the generations, where the daughter rejects her mother’s version of feminism. There is an interesting ambiguity in the text concerning feminist ideals which makes Cabot’s novels, along with many other examples of chick lit jr., difficult to define. But even if there’s a remnant of feminism in these novels, that version of feminism stays on the individual plane and never influences society as a whole.