Why did Jennifer Wilbanks, the notoriousrunaway brideof South Georgia capture the attention of the nation and become an immediate celebrity in the spring of 2005?

The answer goes beyond 24-hour news channels on cable TV, and a researcher from the United Kingdom will talk about it at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 7, at West Virginia Universitys White Hall, Room G21 .

Dr. Diane Negra will discussPostfeminism and the Social Fantasy of the Hometown: Tracking the Runaway Bride.

Negra is a senior lecturer in the School of Film and Television Studies at Englands University of East Anglia who regularly writes about pop culture and feminism. Wilbankssaga, she said, fits both bills.

Thats because, Negra says, the Georgia brides flight fits into the familiar narrative of the missing middle class white girl that has become a regular staple of the news and television drama.

When it became clear that Wilbanks had run away after experiencing doubts about her upcoming wedding, Negra says the womans spontaneous celebrity then seemed to challenge current postfeminist popular culture.

That culture, Negra says, most often combines uncertainty about women’s options with an idealized image of womanhoodand one of the most frequent plot formulas for resolving this conflict in recent years has been the adult woman’s re-dedication to her hometown.

But what happens to that hometown fantasy, Negra muses, when, like Wilbanks, the idealized woman flees?

Negras talk is sponsored by the Division of Sociology and Anthropology, in the School of Applied Social Sciences. Both the division and its school are housed in WVU s Eberly College of Arts and Sciences.

For more information, contact Dr. Susan C. Pearce at susan.pearce@mail.wvu.edu or 304-293-5801, ext. 3212.