Laughing Feminism focuses on comedy in the works of Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Austen, authors who scrutinized the subjected prejudices against women in order to expose their absurdity and encourage readers to laugh at the folly of sexist views. Audrey Bilger shows that these women writers employed a full arsenal of comic weapons such as satire, burlesque, and parody to combat patriarchal nonsense and make comedy out of the discrepancies between the myth and reality of womanhood. Bilger draws on current feminist criticism, comic theory, and the methodologies of literary history...

Marriage today isn t what it used to be: for better, not for worse. As same-sex weddings are becoming more common, the classic love-story happy ending is taking on a decidedly new twist, everyone has a fresh role to play, and supporters and opponents of gay marriage alike are finding themselves in the midst of a revolution that s redefining marriageboth as a personal choice and as an institutionas we know it.
In Here Come the Brides , editors Audrey Bilger and Michele Kort gather together the voices of women taking part inand shapingthis major historical shift. Representing a...