Katie Roiphe

Infobox writer


imagesize = 150px
name = Katie Roiphe
pseudonym =
birthname = Katherine Roiphe
birthdate = 1968
birthplace = New York City, New York
deathdate =
deathplace =
occupation = Non-fiction writer, critic
nationality = American
period = 1994—
genre =
subject =
movement =
notableworks = "" (1994), "Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Portraits of Married Life in London Literary Circles 1910-1939" (2007)
spouse =
partner =
children =
relatives =
influences =
influenced =
awards =

Katie Roiphe (born 1968) is an American author and journalist. She is best-known as the author of the non-fiction examination "" (1994). She is also the author of "Last Night in Paradise: Sex and Morals at the Century's End" (1997), and the 2007 study of writers and marriage, "Uncommon Arrangements". Her 2001 novel "Still She Haunts Me" is an empathetic imagining of the relationship between Charles Dodgson (known as Lewis Carroll) and Alice Liddell, the real-life model for Dodgson's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland".

Background and education

Rophie grew up in New York City, daughter of noted feminist Anne Roiphe. She attended the prestigious, all-female Brearley School, [Elizabeth Bumiller, "An Elite School Is Having a Tough Time Finding a Leader," "New York Times", January 26, 1997.] received a B.A. from Harvard University in 1990, and received a Ph.D. in English Literature from Princeton University in 1996.

"The Morning After"

Roiphe's first book, "The Morning After", argued that in many incidences of campus date rape, women are at least partly responsible for their actions. "One of the questions used to define rape was: 'Have you had sexual intercourse when you didn't want to because a man gave you alcohol or drugs?' The phrasing raises the issue of agency. Why aren't college women responsible for their own intake of alcohol or drugs? A man may give her drugs, but she herself decides to take them. If we assume that women are not all helpless and naive, then they should be responsible for their choice to drink or take drugs. "If a woman's 'judgment is impaired' and she has sex, it isn't always the man's fault; it isn't necessarily always rape." [Katie Roiphe, [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE2D7133EF930A25755C0A965958260 Date Rape's Other Victim] , "New York Times", 13 June 1993.]

In a 1995 interview, Camille Paglia described her as "the first intellectual of her generation." [Virginia Postrel, [http://www.reason.com/news/show/29737.html Interview with the Vamp] , "Reason Magazine", August/September 1995.] Paglia has since revised her opinion of Roiphe: "When Katie Roiphe came up in the mid-’90s, I thought she was going to be the intellectual of her generation, but she just withdrew after the huge flap about her first book, "The Morning After". She drifted off into writing memoirs and talking about her personal life, and now has come back with some book on marriage. She didn't step up and that position is still vacant, so we now have absent two generations of young intellectuals in America." [Elliot Ratzman, [http://www.heebmagazine.com/articles/view/121 Campus Crusader: The Secular Religiosity of Camille Paglia] , "Heeb Magazine", December 2007.]

Writing for the The New Yorker, Katha Pollitt delivered a scathing review of "The Morning After", writing, "It is a careless and irresponsible performance, poorly argued and full of misrepresentations, slapdash research, and gossip. She may be, as she implies, the rare grad student who has actually read "Clarissa," but when it comes to rape and harassment she has not done her homework." [ [http://www.interactivetheatre.org/resc/notbadsex.html Not Just Bad Sex] ] But, the controversial book wasn't without its positive reviews. Declaring it a "Book of the Times," "The New York Times" said "it is courageous of Ms. Roiphe to speak out against the herd ideas that campus life typically encourages." [ Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE5D8113EF935A2575AC0A965958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2 Divergent Views of Rape As Violence and Sex, "The New York Times", September 16, 1993] ] Likewise, "The Washington Post Book World" described the book as "clearheaded, wry, disturbing," saying "Katie Roiphe writes from the trenches of gender warfare." [ [http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0316754323/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link Book Jacket on Amazon] ]

Cultural criticism

Roiphe's second book, 1997's "Last Night in Paradise: Sex and Morals at the Century's End", was a broader examination of sexual mores, the lens held at wider aperture. Now accepted as one of her generation's intellectual and academic voices, she began to contribute reviews and essays to "Vogue", "Harper's", "Slate", "The Washington Post", "Dissent", and "The New York Times". She has continued to serve as a sort of cultural lightning rod, for a persistent discomfort about a woman's proper role: In her 2007review of the novel "Slummy Mummy", Roiphe attracted criticism by posing the question, "But ladies, let's be honest, is it that hard? Aren't there some things on earth that are harder [than being a mother] ?" [Katie Roiphe, [http://www.slatetv.com/id/2171428/pagenum/all/ Attack of the Slummy Mummy: A New Novel Praises the Barely Competent Mom] , "Slate", 31 July 2007.] More recently, she had an essay featured in the anthology "Thirty Ways of Looking at Hillary: Reflections by Women Writers." In her essay, entitled "Elect Sister Frididaire," [ [http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0061455938/ref=sib_dp_pop_toc?ie=UTF8&p=S009#reader-link Book Table of Contents] on Amazon.com.] Roiphe writes that Hillary Clinton is “in many ways the feminist dream incarnate, the opportunity made flesh, the words we whisper to little girls: ‘You can be president. You can do anything you want.’” Reviewing the book for "The New York Times", Michiko Kakutani noted that some of Roiphe's observations were in "stark contrast" to what Kakutani considered some of the "antifeminist" pieces in the collection. [Michiko Kakutani, [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/books/15kaku.html Candidate Clinton Scrutinized by Women] , "The New York Times", January 15, 2008.]

Roiphe's most recent book is "Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Portraits of Married Life in London Literary Circles 1910-1939" (2007). Donna Seaman, in the trade publication "Booklist", gave the book a starred review, writing, "Roiphe, inspired aesthetically and philosophically by the writings and lives of these social and artistic pioneers, offers sophisticated psychological, sexual, and social analysis, fashioning uncommonly affecting portraits of uncommon men and women." [Donna Seaman, "Uncommon Arrangements," "Booklist", June 1, 2007.] In "The New York Times", the editor and critic Tina Brown called it "the perfect bedside book for an age like our own, when everything is known and nothing is understood." [Tina Brown, "Couples," "New York Times", June 24, 2007.] In "The New York Observer", Alexandra Jacobs conceded "Katie haters will be sorry to hear that it’s very absorbing. The author has done something constructive, for a change, with her contempt for the contemporary age’s lily-livered female psyche..." [Alexandra Jacobs, [http://www.observer.com/2007/roiphe-escapes-herself-delves-edwardian-marriages Roiphe Escapes From Herself, Delves Into Edwardian Marriages] , "The New York Observer", June 26, 2007.]

Academic work

Roiphe teaches in the Department of Journalism as an Assistant Professor and is the Assistant Director of the Cultural Criticism and Reporting Program at New York University. [ [http://journalism.nyu.edu/prospectivestudents/coursesofstudy/crc/faculty.html New York University Cultural Reporting and Criticism] ]

Books

* "" (1994)
* "Last Night in Paradise: Sex and Morals at the Century's End" (1997)
* "Still She Haunts Me" (2001)
* "Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Portraits of Married Life in London Literary Circles 1910-1939" (2007)

ee also

* Feminism
* Rape on college campuses
* "Take Back the Night"
* Victimology

References

External links

* [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/books/review/Roiphe-t.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=katie+roiphe&st=nyt&oref=slogin Katie Roiphe on Susan Sontag and her son's memoir] , "Swimming in a Sea of Death: A Son's Memoir". "The New York Times Book Review", Feb. 3, 2008.
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/books/review/Roiphe-t.html?scp=9&sq=katie+roiphe&st=nyt Roiphe reviews] "Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice", by Janet Malcolm. "The New York Times Book Review", September 23, 2007.
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/08/books/review/Roiphe.t.html?scp=14&sq=katie+roiphe&st=nyt Roiphe reviews] "The Mistress's Daughter", by A.M. Homes. "The New York Times Book Review", April 3, 2007.
* [http://www.aaets.org/article137.htm Date rape piece by Roiphe] , adapted from "The Morning After"
* [http://www.slate.com/id/2090196/ Roiphe critiques a feminist supporter of Clinton and Schwarzenegger]
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,,1344250,00.html Roiphe op-ed piece on the "Bush mandate" and its threat to abortion rights]
* [http://www.salon.com/feb97/badgirl970226.html "Salon" article critical of Katie Roiphe]
* [http://www.interactivetheatre.org/resc/notbadsex.html Not Just Bad Sex] , by Katha Pollitt — critical review of "The Morning After"
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/books/review/Brown.html?ex=1184385600&en=ee589ebcbd0b1e8e&ei=5070 New York Times Review of "Uncommon Arrangements"]
* [http://www.slate.com/id/2129290/ Is Maureen Dowd Necessary?] , "Slate", 2 November 2005 — Roiphe critiques Dowd's "Are Men Necessary"
* [http://www.edrants.com/segundo/?p=162 The Bat Segundo Show #129] (2007) — record of critical interviewer questioning Roiphe. (podcast)